Manickam Tagore wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to point out “factually incorrect, inaccurate and misleading statements” made by PM Modi. File
| Photo Credit: G. Moorthy
Congress MP Manickam Tagore on July 4 wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to point out “factually incorrect, inaccurate and misleading statements” made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP MP Anurag Thakur in the House and sought appropriate action in the matter.
Mr. Tagore, sources said, called on Mr. Birla and urged the Speaker to invoke provisions of direction 115(1) over the statements made by Mr. Modi and Mr. Thakur.
In his letter, Mr. Tagore flagged the particular statements made by the Prime Minister in his reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, along with a point-by-point rebuttal. Citing Mr. Modi’s statement that the Congress made a “false” promise of giving ₹8,500 per month to women, he wrote: “It was a promise on government formation.”
‘Our vote share went up’
The Congress MP also challenged the Prime Minister’s claim that the Congress vote share had gone down in 16 States where it contested alone. “This is factually incorrect. The Congress vote share increased in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Telangana etc.”
Terming Mr. Modi’s remarks that “no bulletproof jackets [were provided] to the Army during the Congress’ time” as “grossly misleading”, the Congress MP wrote: ”There was a shortage of jackets, not that jackets were not there. Even police had bulletproof jackets like in Mumbai attacks.”
Challenging the Prime Minister’s claim that the Congress didn’t give fighter jets to the Army, he said, “We had Jaguar, MiG-29, SU-30, Mirage 2000.”
The Congress MP also pointed out alleged inaccuracies in Mr. Thakur’s July 1 speech in the Lok Sabha. Noting that the BJP MP had claimed that the Army was not given arms and fighter jets when the Congress ruled the country, Mr. Tagore wrote, “We had nuclear bombs, missiles like Agni, Prithvi, Aakash, Nag, Trishul, and later Brahmos”.
Challenging Mr. Thakur’s remarks that Prime Minister has not taken a single holiday, he asked “which category of leave is taken for election campaigns”.
The Congress MP’s letter follow a similar move by BJP’s first-time MP Bansuri Swaraj who had given a notice in the Lok Sabha, alleging inaccuracies in the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in the House.
The BJP had charged Mr. Gandhi with misleading the House on the Agniveer scheme and the compensation given to local residents in Ayodhya who were displaced owing to development works.
