Rahul slams Govt over US deal; He is misleading House, will file privilege notice, says Rijiju

His remarks — some of which were not taken on record following directions from Jagdambika Pal who was chairing the proceedings — drew an angry response from the treasury benches.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said a privilege notice will be moved against Gandhi. “We are going to file a privilege notice against Rahul Gandhi for misleading the House and making baseless statements,” he said.

Quoting House rules, Rijiju said when a member intends to make a serious charge against another member, then one has to give notice and substantiate the allegation.

Gandhi said he will authenticate what he said. Stepping out of the House, he told reporters: “There are (US) Department of Justice files on Epstein files naming (Union Minister) Hardeep Puri and (industrialist) Anil Ambani. In an ongoing case against Adani, summons have been issued. The Government of India has not responded for the last 18 months. There is direct pressure on the Prime Minister. The main thing is that no PM would do this in a normal situation. In a normal situation, no PM would do what has happened in terms of data, farmers, defence and energy security. Someone would do this only when there is a certain choke on him.”

Earlier, in the House, when there was an uproar over Gandhi’s remarks, Rijiju said he should not use “abusive language”.

In targeting the government, Gandhi addressed US President Donald Trump over Indian data. “You (Trump) want to protect the dollar; we are your friends. And we appreciate you and will help you protect the dollar. The biggest asset for that is the Indian people. Second thing we would say is, President Trump, if you want access to this data, you have to talk to us like equals, not your servants,” he said.

“Our energy security is our energy security. Third is we understand your voter base is the farmer. But we will also protect our farmers. But the main thing I am saying is that the INDIA bloc government will go and say data is our biggest strength. We will go there as equals. And we will not be made equal to Pakistan,” he said.

He said that under the deal, US imports will go up from 46 billion dollars to 146 billion dollars. “This is absurd. And they have no commitment to us… Our tariff has gone up, while theirs has come down from 16% to 0%,” he said.

“We have buckled up on tariffs, handed out our data, given up control over digital trade rules; no data localisation; free data flow to the USA; limit on digital tax; no source code disclosure and 20-year tax holiday. The most valuable asset that India has and will ever have has been handed over,” he said.

Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More

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