The Hindu : Privilege motion against PM rejected

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 17, 2002

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Privilege motion against PM rejected

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi May 16. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi, today rejected the privilege motion moved against the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. The Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, had moved the motion, alleging that the Prime Minister had misled the House on May 1 while participating in the discussion on the Gujarat situation.

Mr. Dasmunshi had said that while seeking to clarify in the Lok Sabha certain portions of the controversial speech made by him in Goa, Mr Vajpayee had "deliberately" inserted the word "such" in a sentence which did not exist in the original speech.

Mr. Dasmunshi had produced a video copy of the speech to prove his point that the word "such" had not been used before the word "Muslims". He charged that the interpolation had been made to alter the meaning of the speech.

A significant feature of the ruling delivered by Mr. Joshi was the revelation that Mr. Vajpayee in his reply to the notice had admitted that "the video tape of his speech at Goa does not contain the word such". The Prime Minister, in his reply, admitted that he had on May 1 read from the corrected version of his speech that was brought out by his office.

Mr. Vajpayee clarified that in his Goa speech that he was actually referring to followers of "militant Islam". He also cited the clarificatory statement issued by him on May 14 and also the corrected version of his speech made available by his office. "It is this corrected version from which I read out the relevant paragraphs while speaking on Gujarat."

The Speaker, in his ruling, said that he was satisfied with the Prime Minister's clarification and was therefore disallowing the privilege motion.

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