Union Budget Session: Lok Sabha uproar as Rahul Gandhi cites ex-Army chief

A row erupted in Lok Sabha on Monday when Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi sought to quote from a ldquomemoirrdquo of former Army chief M M Naravane on the 2020 IndiaChina conflict but faced strong opposition from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other BJP members who accused the Congress leader of misleading the House leading to uproar and adjournment of proceedings for the dayLok Sabha Speaker Om Birla disallowed Gandhi from raising the issue but he did not relent and several Opposition leaders also rallied behind him The House was adjourned twice and later for the dayEarlier as Gandhi rose to speak on the Motion of Thanks to the presidentrsquos address he said he would first like to respond to the charges made by the previous speaker BJP MP Tejasvi Surya against the Congress on nationalism and began quoting from what he stated was the ldquomemoirrdquo of Gen Naravane talking about the IndiaChina conflict of 2020However Defence Minister Singh strongly protested this and asked Gandhi to clarify whether the book had been published or not The uproar went on for about 50 minutes with Speaker Om Birla repeatedly stating that no book or newspaper clipping can be quoted on a matter not related to the proceedings of the House and Gandhi insisting that the document was authenticated and he could quote from itGovernment sources said Gandhi was reading ldquoconcocted thingsrdquo on China They said there was ample material in the public domain on the decisions taken by Indiarsquos first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on China and alleged that he ldquosurrendered thousands of acres of land just to further his own statesmanshiprdquoWho is exArmy chief Manoj Mukund NaravaneGeneral Manoj Mukund Naravane is a former Chief of the Indian Army who served as the 27th Chief of Army Staff from December 31 2019 to April 30 2022 Born on April 22 1960 in Pune he is the son of a former Indian Air Force officer An alumnus of the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy Naravane holds an MPhil in defence studiesCommissioned into the 7th Battalion of the Sikh Light Infantry in 1980 he commanded key formations including Rashtriya Rifles units in Jammu and Kashmir an infantry brigade and the Assam Rifles He led the Army during critical periods including the Galwan standoff with China and also served briefly as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee before retirementGovt heckled Rahul to gag truth CongThe Congress on Monday alleged that the Modi government ldquoheckledrdquo Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to stop him from speaking in the Lok Sabha on the IndiaChina border conflict of 2020 from former Army chief Manoj Naravanersquos ldquomemoirrdquo as it was afraid that the ldquotruth of its incompetencerdquo would be exposedCongress general secretary K C Venugopal said that the government had deployed seniormost Cabinet ministers and ldquomisusedrdquo rules to ldquosilencerdquo Gandhi in the House ldquoThis faux nationalist government is so afraid of the truth of their incompetence coming out that they have deployed a bunch of seniormost Cabinet Ministers to prevent LOP Sh Rahul Gandhi ji from speakingldquoThey moved heaven and earth to stall the publishing of Ex Army Chief Gen Manoj Naravane jirsquos book and now when excerpts are coming out which expose their socalled nationalist commitments they are heckling and silencing the Leader of Oppositionrdquo the Congress leader said in a post on XThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever