KOCHI, Apr 7 : Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said that invective should have no place in political discourse and everyone should treat each other with respect, despite disagreements over principles and policies.
Tharoor was responding to queries from reporters, at a press conference here, regarding Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s recent remark terming Gujaratis as “illiterate”.
He said that he has deplored in the past about the “quality of the political discourse going down”.
“We have even seen now cases filed against Assam Chief Minister for hate speech.That should not be the direction of our politics. We should, I believe, treat each other with respect.
“We may disagree very strongly on principles and on issues and policies. But invective should have no place in our politics. I must say our standards should not be lowered to that of those who use bad language in politics,” Tharoor said.
He also said that he hopes the political leaders will respect the public by giving them good reasons to vote in their favour and against others, “rather than using language that frankly coarsens the public debate”.
“I say this particularly having seen the fact that there are hate speech cases against some people,” he said.
When he was told about the Idukki District Congress Committee (DCC) president C P Mathew’s alleged objectionable remarks regarding a woman party worker during an election campaign, Tharoor said that in a large party with an intense and passionate poll campaign “people can sometimes say more than what is wise”.
“But, that is not endorsed by all,” he added.
“Every individual view expressed by every Congressman cannot be hung on the party. If what is said, what is reported, is accurate, I don’t think that anyone of us would endorse such a tactic or such, such an approach,” he said.
Mathew, during a poll campaign speech, purportedly referred to a past protest and claimed that a former woman vice president of a village panchayat had been instructed by him to tear her own blouse as part of the agitation to implicate political rivals.
Tharoor said that Congress was a party that has got a long track record and therefore, not to judge it by one sentence out of context that somebody may or may not have said.
“Judge us by the kind of government we have given in the past and that we’ll give in future,” he said.
Regarding the recent rejection of the opposition’s impeachment notice against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar by the Lok Sabha speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman, Tharoor said that party lawyers would be looking into the matter.
He said that in his view, the Election Commission (EC) needs to do some serious introspection of its own behaviour and conduct.
“We as voters have always had a lot of respect for the Election Commission as an impartial body that has a certain place in our country’s constitutional system and which has helped run elections for a long time.
“We would like very much to be able to continue to respect the Election Commission. Therefore, its conduct must be above reproach,” he said.
On the issue of the Parliament holding a session from April 16 to 18 on the bill related to 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, Tharoor said he was not aware of what the central government was proposing, but the Congress was in favour of women’s reservation.
“We were the first party to initiate it. Sonia Gandhi as chairperson, the UPA had advocated it, … Subsequently, the BJP came and unanimously passed the bill,” he said.
He said that the BJP now apparently wants to change the procedure that they had proposed and passed by way of the constitutional amendment.
“All I can say is, we will as a party need to study what exactly is the mechanism they proposed, how do they wish to fast track women’s reservation, and what are the implications constitutionally and for the sitting Parliament, as well as for larger issues of states’ rights, federalism and so on,” the Congress MP said. (PTI)
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