House adjourned twice amid ugly Channi-Bittu spat over Beant barb

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, July 25

A heated argument erupted between Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu and former Punjab Chief Minister and MP Charanjit Singh Channi in the Lok Sabha today, leading to two adjournments.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had to intervene and request Speaker Om Birla to expunge the “derogatory” and “unparliamentary” words. The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a bulletin showing the expunctions. Bittu had left the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha poll and joined the BJP. He unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha poll from Ludhiana. Channi won from Jalandhar.

The spat between the two started when Channi, speaking during a discussion on the Budget, said the BJP was like the East India Company, which had taken over trade to rule the country. Bittu got up to say something after which Channi reminded him, “Your grandfather (former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh) was a shaheed….”

Bittu retorted, “My grandfather laid down his life for the country and not for the Congress.” Responding to Channi’s allegations of the BJP being like the British, he asked about the foreign origins of the Congress leadership. Bittu said, “Let him speak about his wealth; he is talking about the poor”.

Channi, without naming the Ambanis, said thousands of crores of rupees had been spent at a wedding. “The poor do not have money for food and the Prime Minister went with a bouquet to a wedding,” he said.

“Thousands of farmers are called Khalistanis when they raise their demands,” said Channi, adding that a national highway had been blocked by Haryana, but farmers were being blamed.

Channi accused the government of not keeping its promises made to the farmers. “The farmers were promised a legal guarantee on the minimum support price; where is the guarantee? The National Security Act (NSA) was invoked against four farmers for their protest,” he said.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal intervened and accused the Congress MP of misleading the House, saying he should authenticate his allegations.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also accused Channi of misleading the House. Rijiju urged the Chair to move a privilege motion against Channi.

Channi cited Sikh scriptures, saying “when truth is spoken, it hurts several people”. He raised the issue of Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, saying the leader was elected and kept inside the jail under the NSA. “He is not able to speak about his constituency; this is also an emergency”.

The Congress disassociated itself from his comments with general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh posting on X, “The views expressed by Channi on Amritpal Singh are his own and do not reflect in any way the position of the Congress.”