FOR this statement, Mr. Rahul Gandhi should be ashamed. For, as a Member of Parliament (MP), as a leading politician of the country, as the supreme leader of the Congress party, he must know that nobody is stopped from making any speech in Parliament on issues of importance. And he must also know that if an MP seeks to distort issues deliberately by indulging in falsehood or by pressing for a wrong narrative, then the chair has the constitutionally-guaranteed right to stop the person from making a speech. Yet, this man has the temerity to distort reality of sound parliamentary practices -- not just in India but also abroad. Thus, he has already disqualified himself as a member of the country’s highest democratic forum. For this act of his, he must feel a sense of shame.

It is against this background that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been asking of an unconditional apology for insulting the institution of parliament internationally. The Houses of Parliament are witnessing unprecedented disturbance of proceedings for the past 5-6 days as an aftermath of Mr. Gandhi’s uncouth remarks. In that ruckus, Mr. Rahul Gandhi may or may not be able to make a statement. But, it is a matter of national concern that a senior politician like him has the temerity to make such irresponsible statements about not being allowed to speak in Parliament. As Mr. Rahul Gandhi raised this issue in India and elsewhere in the past few years, the nation started rejecting him and his party with increasingly firm resoluteness. So, it does not really matter what he says about being or not being allowed to speak. But it would be worth recalling some of his statements in the Lok Sabha in the past some time: On one occasion, all of a sudden, Mr. Gandhi rose in the House and said something that shocked the whole nation. He said, in effect, that India was not a nation at all but only a union of states. The entire House was on its feet protesting against such a thoughtless statement. For record, Mr. Gandhi might have been referring to the federal structure of governance. But he used the opportunity to decry the concept of nation -- not stupidly but purposefully. That is his narrative.

On several occasions in the recent weeks, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, kept raising the bogey of democracy in peril, even on the floor of the Lok Sabha, of course joined in by some others on the Opposition benches. He also charged that he was not being allowed to speak, but ignored the fact that his own party kept shouting during the speech of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. None of these acts of Mr. Gandhi’s was in tune with the tradition of democratic debate and discussion. All he kept harping on all along was that the ruling party was destroying democracy in letter and spirit.

Then he started his Bharat Jodo Yatra that fetched some response from the public. But the narrative of the yatra was that the country was in a divisive turmoil. And in the same breath, he would negate his own words thoughtlessly. And that was all deliberate. Then he made a fool of himself in Kashmir when he said that he saw a terrorist who did not kill him because the ultra realised that he (Mr. Gandhi) was ready to listen to him. What an utter nonsense.

And then Mr. Gandhi went to England and made a bigger fool of himself. In that fit of stupidity, he even said on one occasion that China was a good country and India was needling it unnecessarily. Of course, Mr. Gandhi also made several other statements that formed an integral part of his narrative -- to be pushed even in India. Yet, let us not mistake him as a fool. He is not one. Much to the contrary, he is a smart operator with a definite ideology destruction of India’s core values. He is also not a fool not to realise that his policies are killing his party. He knows the diabolical effect of his actions on the 137-year-old Congress party. Yet, he continues with all that.

Why? Nobody may know the exact reason. Yet, there is enough ground to suspect that Mr. Rahul Gandhi is deliberately indulging in all the political actions with a definitive idea of spoiling the country’s public discourse. This may lead some people to think that he is part of a larger international conspiracy aimed at damaging India like never before. Hence his appreciation of China. Hence his open allegations that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has destroyed democracy in the country. Hence also his charge that he is not being allowed to speak in Parliament.

All this points to something very dirty, something very fishy, something anti-India. The common people, of course, sense all that. And that is India’s strength -- which Mr. Rahul Gandhi cannot puncture.