The Congress on Thursday claimed the bills proposing the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers, and ministers under arrest for 30 days on serious charges were a "WMD -- weapon of mass distraction". It claimed the bills were aimed at diverting attention from "vote chori", a strong opposition candidate for the vice presidential polls and the problems in the India-US ties. Congress general secretary in-charge, communications, Jairam Ramesh, said the BJP's "anti-corruption credentials" were restricted to "operating a washing machine" and alleged the bills introduced by Amit Shah were "unconstitutional and anti-democratic". Speaking to PTI, he blamed the government for the near-washout of the Monsoon Session and said this happened due to its "my way or the highway approach". "Not my way or the Gadkari highway but my way or the Modi highway," he said, taking a swipe at the government.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday introduced in the Lok Sabha three Bills for the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers, and ministers under arrest for 30 consecutive days on serious charges, drawing fierce protests from opposition MPs who tore up copies of the draft law and marched close to his seat shouting slogans. On Shah's proposal, the bills were sent by the House to a Joint Committee of Parliament comprising 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha for scrutiny. The three Bills are the Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill 2025; the Constitution (One Hundred And Thirtieth Amendment) Bill 2025; and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2025. The Bills have proposed that if the prime minister, union ministers or chief ministers are arrested and detained in custody for 30 consecutive days for offences that attract a jail term of at least five years, they will lose their jobs on the 31st day.
Ramesh said the bills were a "WMD -- weapon of mass distraction" that were aimed at distracting from "vote chori narrative", a strong joint opposition candidate and the problems India is having with the US. The opposition has put up a joint vice-presidential candidate, B Sudarshan Reddy, a former Supreme Court judge, for the polls. Talking about the Monsoon Session, which concluded on Thursday, Ramesh said, "The session began exactly one month ago. The demand of the opposition on July 21 was to have a discussion on Pahalgam, on Operation Sindoor and related issues and have a discussion on Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and plans to extend it to states such as Assam and West Bengal."
But the session began with a "dhamaka" of the resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar as vice president, which, by all accounts, looks like it was a "forced resignation", Ramesh said. "I think the tremor is still being felt. It was an earthquake, and I think on the Richter scale it was 10." He noted that a discussion on Operation Sindoor did happen, but said that none of their questions were answered. "There were the revelations of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Anil Chauhan, the revelations of Indian Navy Captain Shiv Kumar and the revelations of Lt Gen Rahul Singh and in fact, the biggest revelations of Operation Sindoor came much after the debate took place when Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh made very significant revelations which found no mention at all during the debate in Parliament," Ramesh said. "But we did have a debate for 16 hours in both houses. Unfortunately, the government continuously refused to have a debate on SIR. We even offered that let us not call it on SIR, and instead call it a discussion on electoral reforms or strengthening the election process. But even that was not acceptable to the government," the Congress leader said.
So, this session was a complete washout, and bills got passed in the din, he said. "On the penultimate day, the home minister comes up with this extraordinary bill, which is a complete negation of the Constitution and democracy. Basically, what the bill says is that if you are charged, if you don't join the BJP in 30 days, you are out, and if you join the BJP in 30 days, then the washing machine will operate," Ramesh alleged. "There was no notice, there was no inkling that the bills were coming," he said.
Ramesh said the Congress had been demanding statehood for Jammu and Kashmir, and everybody thought it would be about that. But that was not the case, the Congress leader said. "In my view, this last-minute bill was a WMD-- weapon of mass distraction," he added. Talking about former vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar, Ramesh said, "He is unheard, unread, it is unusual because since 2022, when he became the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, he was vocal... had strong views on all issues. But since July 21, he has been muzzled and silenced."