New Delhi: After setting off a nationwide furore by calling Mahatma Gandhi’s assasin Nathuram Godse a “patriot”, controversial BJP MP and terror accused Pragya Singh Thakur, amid unrelenting pressure from the Opposition, was forced to apologise for her remarks twice in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
The BJP member from Bhopal, earlier Friday morning, offered an “apology”, but this was swiftly rejected by the Opposition as she only expressed “regret” and tried to turn around the issue by attacking Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for calling her a “terrorist”. Later in the afternoon, after Speaker Om Birla convened a meeting of all parties’ floor leaders, it was decided that Ms Thakur would read out her apology from a text that was approved by all parties.
Half an hour after the Lok Sabha reconvened post lunch, Ms Thakur reached the House and read out the apology.
She began by saying she had faced a lot of attacks from her “enemies”. but immediately Congress’ Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhury along with many other Opposi-tion leaders protested, at which point the Speaker asked her to read out from the prepared text.
Ms Thakur again pleaded that she wants to put across her views as earlier too she could not convey her views, but Speaker Birla asked her to stick to the text. At this point, she said during the discussion on the SPG Bill on November 27 “I did not call Nathuram Godse a patriot and I did not even take his name. But still if it has hurt somebody, then I apologise while expressing my regret.”
She again tried to say something beyond the text, but the Speaker turned off her mike. Her first apology was panned by Opposition parties for its reference to other issues, as they insisted on an unconditional apology. She also targeted Rahul Gandhi without naming him.
