A brief history of Rahul Gandhi's Lok Sabha speeches and expunged remarks

A defiant Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday shot a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, demanding that the expunged parts of his speech be restored. The Leader of Opposition said he wanted to convey ground realities and taking them off the records was "against the very tenets of parliamentary democracy."

In a fiery speech during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, Gandhi pointed to the Treasury benches and accused them of engaging in violence and hate in the name of Hindus.

An outraged BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Modi, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Shivraj Chouhan hit back at the Congress leader for apparently calling the "entire Hindu society violent." The Rae Bareli MP was quick to clarify that his comments were aimed the ruling party, and pointed out that PM Modi, BJP or RSS did not represent the entire Hindu society.

However, the Speaker expunged the comments, inviting a familiar criticism of nulling Opposition voices.

"In Modi ji's world, truth can be expunged. But in reality, the truth can't be expunged. I said what I had to say, that is the truth. They can expunge as much as they want. Truth is truth," Gandhi said.

This was not the first time the Congress MP's remarks in Parliament were expunged. In the previous Lok Sabha, Birla removed his comments from the records on two major occasions.

In August 2023, Rahul-- who was freshly reinstated to the Lok Sabha after a suspension -- launched a scathing attack on the government over the ethnic violence in Manipur. He claimed PM Modi was not a patriot, but a traitor who murdered the idea of India in Manipur.

In February 2023, the then-Wayanad MP questioned industrialist Gautam Adani's meteoric rise and his relationship with the Prime Minister. 18 remarks made during his 53-minute speech were expunged.

Lok Sabha Rules of Procedure allows the Speaker to use his discretion to expunge words, sentences, or parts of a speech, if the chair thinks they are defamatory or unparliamentary. But in recent times, the opposition has accused the Speaker of using these powers to silence critics of the BJP government.