Furore in Lok Sabha over GK Pillai, P Chidambaram’s remarks

Former home minister P. Chidambaram’s remarks on Afzal Guru and ex-home secretary G.K. Pillai’s comments on Ishrat Jahan on Friday echoed in the Lok Sabha with a BJP member claiming the erstwhile UPA government had tried to settle scores with its political rival Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat.

Just before the House began discussing the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, Anurag Thakur referred to reports quoting Mr Chidambaram as saying that Afzal Guru’s case “was perhaps not correctly decided” and Mr Pillai as saying the affidavit submitted to the Gujarat HC in 2009 about Ishrat Jahan’s LeT links and her accomplices, who were killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2004, was changed at the political level”.

“Who changed the affidavit (in the Ishrat Jahan case), the nation wants to know,” Mr Thakur said.

Members of Congress and the CPI(M) objected to the Chair for “selectively” allowing some members to speak.

Soon after the Question Hour, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said the Speaker had not expunged from House proceedings the “derogatory” remarks against party chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul made by Mr Thakur.

On the contrary, words used by party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia were expunged, he said. Mr Kharge said words used against the Gandhis should be removed from records.