House panel meet sees tense moments as BJP, Congress MPs spar over cop ‘excesses’ and 1984 riots

A heated exchange took place between BJP and Congress MPs during a parliamentary committee on Home Affairs meeting. The Opposition members insisted on discussing the police action against protesting students in Delhi on July 20. A BJP member intervened by stating that if Congress members were not adhering to the meeting's agenda, he too wished to discuss the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

This led to a verbal altercation between the two factions, particularly between BJP MP Tarun Chugh and Congress MP Jai Prakash. Committee chairman Radha Mohan Das Agrawal subsequently ruled out including the exchange in the committee's proceedings. The committee's initial agenda was to hear views from various ministries regarding "crime against children."

Congress members argued that the July 20 events in the Capital constituted such a crime and should be addressed by the panel. A BJP member alleged that Congress was honoring its former leader Sajjan Kumar, who had been convicted for his role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, with a speech. Congress responded by criticizing BJP's alleged involvement in fake encounters in Haryana, resulting in a heated verbal exchange between the two sides.

On August 5, Congress MP submitted a letter to the committee, requesting a discussion on the police action against students at Jantar Mantar during the protest against the NEET paper leak row. When the letter was not taken up on the same day, Congress members insisted that the issue be addressed during the upcoming Tuesday meeting.

Agrawal, however, stated that since the matter was pending before the Supreme Court and subject to parliamentary rules, it could not be discussed during the committee meeting. Two Congress MPs engaged with Agrawal over the significance of discussing police action against students, arguing it fell under the "crime against children" agenda for Tuesday.

Agrawal ruled that the Congress members' issue could not be addressed in the committee meeting, but suggested discussing standard operating procedures (SOP) for the use of force during protests in future meetings. The Congress MP's letter and the tense exchanges between committee members were excluded from the official record.