House spat turns ugly as both sides allege assault

Ugly scenes unfolded in Parliament on Thursday after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress accused each other of assault and shoving, and filed contrasting police complaints in what marked an unparalleled deterioration of decorum and ratcheted up tensions between the government and the Opposition.

- Smriti Kak Ramachandran

The ruling party alleged that Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi shoved and hurt at least one lawmaker while injuring a second even as the Congress refuted the allegations and said BJP legislators blocked Gandhi's way and pushed Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, injuring him in the knee.

The controversy erupted near the steps of Parliament's Makar Dwar, an entrance and exit reserved for lawmakers, when members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) were holding concurrent protests over the legacy of constitutionalist BR Ambedkar. The BJP was accusing earlier Congress governments of insulting India's first law minister as the INDIA bloc members were demanding the resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah over his remarks on Ambedkar earlier this week. The issue had jammed both houses of Parliament a day ago.

As the two protests came face to face on Thursday morning, pandemonium broke out. The BJP alleged two of its lawmakers - Farrukhabad MP Mukesh Rajput and Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi-sustained injuries when Gandhi shoved them while making his way inside Parliament. Both were admitted at Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to them over the phone.

Separately, a woman lawmaker from the BJP in the Rajya Sabha, S Phangnon Konyak, said she was made "uncomfortable" by Gandhi's behaviour, even as Congress member Hibi Eden called the allegation entirely fabricated.

"Decorum has been torn apart. Democracy has been shredded and sullied. There is no other example like that of the hooliganism of Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party. Such conduct was never seen in the Parliamentary history of India," Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.