Cong has no moral right to preach about Parliament etiquette: BJP

Hitting out at Congress for obstructing proceedings in both Houses, BJP on Thursday said the opposition party had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and demanded that it apologise to Parliament and the Prime Minister for calling him names.

"Congress has no moral right to teach us or preach us or give sermons about parliamentary etiquette and standards,” said Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters.

"Congress needs to ponder about its conduct of creating disturbances when the PM is addressing the House. They should, in fact, apologise to the House for their conduct. They need to apologise to the people, Parliament and PM," he added.

He said the opposition, particularly Congress, "should tender an apology for obstructing Parliament, the Prime Minister for not showing respect to the him, for making running commentary and also for creating disturbances, for making uncharitable remarks against the Prime Minister, not only now, but also earlier".

He said the Congress leaders call names to the Prime Minister umpteen number of times, using all "absurd and cheap words".

"Let them not teach or preach 'pravachan' (sermons) to others," he said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said, "They should apologise not only to BJP, but the entire country. We showed them the mirror from our side, unmasked Congress and hence, they are not able to digest it."

"They (Opposition) called him (the PM) 'Hitler', 'Mussolini', 'Gaddafi'. They made all sort of meaningless remarks against the Prime Minister. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality, creating issues out of non-issues, why should the Prime Minister apologise?" Naidu asked.

He said Modi was doing "a great job" and he had made "a very meaningful and constructive intervention" in the House.

Naidu said the Prime Minister of India is an institution, as he is "the most popular" Prime Minister of the country and "is respected not only in India, but worldwide".

Congress, which ruled the country for 50 years, is "not able to digest the defeat and then they are trying to create obstructions" in the progress of the country.

Taking a jibe at Congress, he said, "Of all how they got two great champions of parliamentary democracy -- AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Robert Vadra -- to teach us about parliamentary etiquette. Let them ponder about what they have done."

Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in the Rajya Sabha, Modi took a jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from him as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams taking place during his regime.

An enraged Congress had yesterday taken strong exception to the "raincoat" jibe and staged a walkout and demanded an apology from him. Congress also disrupted the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday and protested in the Lok Sabha.