On Tuesday, Vice President of India and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar responded to the now-dismissed ‘no confidence’ vote against him by claiming that the opposition attempted to use a vegetable knife to do “bypass surgery.”
He stated at an event, “Any Constitutional position has to be vindicated by commitment to sublimity, sterling qualities, and Constitutionalism. We are not in a position to settle scores”.
He said he was stunned after reading the motion.
He added, “Look at the notice against the Vice-President. Chandrashekhar ji had said, never do bypass surgery with a vegetable cutting knife… that was not even a vegetable cutting knife. The person who wrote my notice had rust on his knife! I was stunned after reading it. But I am surprised that none of you have read it”.
Jagdeep Dhankhar also made a statement against the Parliament’s poor level of productivity.
He continued, “Have you noticed any great debate in Parliament in the last few decades? Have you noticed any great contribution made on the floor of the House? We are in the news for the wrong reason. We have learned to live with order, which is only a disorder. However, accountability has to be enforced by the media because media is the only conveyance to reach the people at large”.
On December 10, at least 60 opposition members signed a notice calling for Dhankhar to be removed from his position, claiming that he was “biased” and that they did not trust him.
Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh later dismissed the impeachment notice. He claimed the impeachment notice was part of a plan to disparage the incumbent vice president and undermine the country’s constitutional institutions in his three-page order, which Rajya Sabha secretary general P C Mody presented to the House.
The message was deemed a “misadventure” in “deliberate trivializing and demeaning” the high constitutional office of the vice president, according to the deputy chairman.
The Deputy Chairman ruled, “A look at the notice reveals it couldn’t be more casual and cavalier, wanting on every conceivable aspect and severally flawed- absence of addressee, absence of resolution text, incumbent Vice President’s name not correctly spelt in the entire petition, documents and videos asserted not made part, premised on links of disjointed media reports without authentication and many more”.
