Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took a swipe at Trinamool MP Derek O'Brien's culinary based attack on the centre over rushing to pass bills. Mr Naqvi who is also a Deputy Leader of the Rajya Sabha said he can have fish curry if he’s allergic to “Papri Chaat”, adding that it is a conspiracy to malign the parliament’s dignity.
Naqvi said, "If he's allergic to 'chaat-papri', he can have fish curry. But don't turn Parliament into a fish market. Unfortunately, how work is being done with conspiracy to malign Parliament's dignity was never seen before.”
"If you malign the dignity of the Parliament, such activities are neither in their interest nor ours. It is not even in the interest of Parliament traditions," he added.
Derek O'Brien had slammed the centre on Monday for rushing bills through the parliament and sarcastically asked if it was "making papri chaat".
In a much-scuffing tweet, he wrote, "In the first 10 days, Modi-Shah rushed through and passed 12 bills at an average time of UNDER SEVEN MINUTES per Bill.”
"Passing legislation or making papri chaat?" he asked, which is a popular street snack.
Also Read: Derek O’Brien Raps Centre Over Aggressive Passing Of Bills; Calls It Making ‘Papri Chaat’
The tweet and conduct of the Opposition in the parliament have also earned PM Modi’s fury to which he censored as an insult to the legislature and the Constitution.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Mr O'Brien had criticised the government for rushing bills and used food references to get his thoughts in the House. In 2019, the TMC MP had: "Are we delivering pizzas..."
Meanwhile, not so calm, Mr O’Brien on Tuesday said that his intention to use a cultural idiom was to make people connect over a serious issue. He further said that the Prime Minister would be delighted if he had referred to the situation as "dhokla" instead of Chaat, which is a famous snack in Gujarat.
He stressed that the real issue was the hurried passing of bills in both the Houses without any discussions and even went on to say that the prime minister's reaction showed that the "TMC is setting the agenda".
Stressing that the real issue is of hurrying with passing the bills in both Houses of the Parliament without giving a scope of discussion.
The Monsoon Parliament proceedings that began on July 19 have sunk into chaos and continuous disruptions from the Opposition who are demanding a discussion on the use of Pegasus spyware that revealed numbers of potential targets including names of some politicians, journalists, and activists and the farmers' issues.
The Opposition has been insisting on a debate and calling the government to speak on reported snooping into citizens privacy, the Centre has termed it a non-issue.