New Delhi : Even as there is no outward criticism, there is a palpable sense of unease among the opposition parties over the manner in which the minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been aggressively responding to issues on the floor of the house. “His remarks verge on the point of being insulting,” said a senior leader.
For him a case in point was Naqvi’s response to the concerns expressed by senior Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao. Rao who was suspended for the day earlier in the week for some unparliamentary remarks wanted the record to be set straight, and also demanded an apology from the senior parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu. Though the presiding officer P J Kurien allowed Rao to have his say, Naqvi simply brushed aside Rao”s concerns.
“Every day you need a new excuse to disrupt the house. Nothing has been said against you, unless you are looking for another excuse today,” said Naqvi.
Indeed, this unease against Naqvi is a part of the overall feeling in the opposition that the BJP ministers who have to manage the affairs in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling party is in a minority, are somehow in a rush to smother their way through the opposition. “But for these ministers, the prime minister could have easily stood up and reassured the house and the nation. But these floor managers have a different approach,” said another MP.
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Threat calls from Dubai
Home Ministry has stepped up the security of Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi following several threats he has received on phone from ‘underworld’. Sources close to Naqvi said he was warned of dire consequences by an anonymous caller for speaking in favour of PM Narendra Modi despite being a Muslim and was asked to keep his mouth shut. Naqvi had been receiving these calls for the last few weeks and reported the matter to MHA recently.
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