MP's mimicry insult to Vice President post: Jagdeep Dhankhar

NEW DELHI: On a day President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed dismay over mimicry of vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar by TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee, the BJP MPs and some ministers stood up in Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour “in solidarity with Dhankhar and in protest against the opposition.”

The BJP members, which included Leader of the House Piyush Goyal, ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari, stood in their respective seats, with the permission of the Chair, after parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi attacked the opposition for insulting the the Prime Minister for 20 years “as he comes from a poor family and is an OBC”; the President, a tribal; and now, Dhankhar “who is the son of farmer and a Jat who has risen to become the vice president.” They were later requested to be seated by the Chair, who said their gesture “has touched my heart”. “Hindustan will not tolerate the insult to the vice president,” said Pralhad.



The opposition, which had been insisting on a statement from home minister Amit Shah on the LS security breach, walked out in protest.

Earlier, President Murmu took to X saying she was dismayed to see the manner in which the vice president was humiliated in the Parliament complex. “Elected representatives must be free to express themselves, but their expression should be within the norms of dignity and courtesy. That has been the parliamentary tradition we are proud of, and the people of India expect them to uphold it,” she posted. The RS chairperson thanked her in a reply to the post, both for her kind words and the timely reminder that basic courtesies must always remain.



“I am committed to upholding Constitutional principles till my last breath. No insults can prevent me from doing so,” Dhankhar posted on X.

Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Dhankhar expressed his anguish, saying the act of mimicking him and its videography had caused an “insult” to the honour of the post of the Vice President, the farmers and his Jat community.

“I do not care about myself. If someone insults me, I bear it, I will swallow it. But I will never tolerate that I have not been able to protect the dignity of the post I hold,” the Chairman said.



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