Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday wrote a letter to Speaker Om Birla after portions of his speech were expunged from Parliamentary records by the Chair.

Gandhi wrote to the Speaker saying “selective expunction” defies logic and that the remarks be restored.

In his first speech as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Gandhi had launched an all-out attack on the BJP, accusing the leaders of the ruling party of dividing people on communal lines. Some remarks he made during the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address were expunged by the Speaker.

“Shocked to note the manner in which a considerable portion of my speech has been simply taken off from the proceedings under the garb of expunction,” Gandhi wrote in the letter.

“It is every member’s right to raise people’s concerns on the floor of the House. It is that right and in exercise of my obligations to the people of the country, that I was exercising yesterday,” he said.

Referring to the speech of BJP MP Anurag Thakur, Gandhi said that despite the former’s speech being full of allegations, only one word was expunged.

“With due respect to your good self, this selective expunction defies logic,” the Congress MP from Rae Bareli wrote in the letter.

“I am enclosing relevant portions of uncorrected Debates of Lok Sabha dated 2 July. I am constrained to state that the portions expunged do not come under the ambit of Rule 380. What I sought to convey in the House is ground reality, the factual position. Every member of the House who personifies the collective voice of the people whom he or she represents has the freedom of speech as enshrined in Article 105(1) of the Constitution of India. It is every member’s right to raise people’s concerns on the floor of the House,” he said, adding “the remarks expunged from the proceedings be restored.”

The Congress leader’s letter to Speaker Birla came after several portions of his Monday’s Lok Sabha speech, including his remarks on BJP’s Hinduism and attacks on ruling party over NEET row and Agnipath recruitments in the Army, were expunged from Parliamentary records.