Many leaders from the Opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc moved a privilege notice against the leader of the house in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal for addressing them as ‘traitors’ on Tuesday. While hitting out strongly at the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Piyush Goyal, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to Twitter and asked for his apology on the floor of the house. The leaders from Congress, TMC, AAP, RJD, DMK, RJD, JDU, NCP and the Left parties gave the notice and also created uproar in the house over this, reported news agency PTI.
General Secretary in-charge Communications of the Congress Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "Nothing less than an apology from him on the floor of the House, when it is in order, will do.”
Leaders of the INDIA gave notice to the Rajya Sabha chairman complaining against Piyush Goyal's remarks that he made while speaking on the issue of a media portal receiving funding from China-linked firms allegedly to spread Chinese propaganda.
In another Tweet, Jairam Ramesh said the parties staged a walkout from Rajya Sabha for the rest of the day because of Piyush Goyal's continued refusal to apologise for the highly objectionable and completely unacceptable remarks that he made against leaders of the INDIA bloc.
The minister had questioned the relationship between the digital news portal ‘NewsClick’ and the Opposition parties. This came after a report by the New York Times about the news portal allegedly receiving funding from China-linked firms. Notably, later in the House, Piyush Goyal said he takes back any words which may not be parliamentary and urged the chair to remove the same from the records.
In a tweet, Goyal said the alliance was "arrogantly" working to attack the unity and integrity of the country by hatching a conspiracy against India. Moreover, the chairman said he will go through the records and if there is anything unparliamentary, that will be expunged as part of the records of the House.