NEW DELHI: Congress was left embarrassed on Friday when the party’s leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, while arguing that the suspension of seven party MPs for unruly behaviour for the whole session was disproportionate to their offence, ended up likening the lawmakers in question to “pickpockets”.

“Jeb katua ko phansi ke takhte pe nahi chadaya ja sakta hai (a pickpocket cannot be sent to the gallows),” Chowdhury said, triggering peals of laughter from the House, with the treasury benches, in particular, all glee.

Senior BJP members including Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and several other Union ministers were seen trying to convey to the Congress functionary that the analogy drawn by him was not quite flattering to his colleagues and that he had, while playing the defence attorney, denigrated them.

Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi termed the analogy strange and unfortunate. But Choudhury remained unfazed and refused to retract his statement. “I mean to say the MPs’ offence was not as serious as to warrant their suspension for the entire session,” he said.

“Adhirji, you should know that ‘ jeb katua ’ means pickpocket. The comparison is so strange and incorrect. All of us sitting in this House are respected members... you should not compare your party MPs with pickpockets,” Joshi said even as he justified the action against Congress MPs, saying snatching papers from the Speaker’s table had never happened in 70 years.

JD(U) member Rajiv Ranjan Singh, while justifying the action against Congress MPs, took a dig at Chowdhury and said the “jeb katua” analogy explained that the Congress functionary was admitting that a “crime” had been committed.

Joshi recalled incidents when BJP was in the opposition and said then leader of opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani always stopped them from doing anything which did not suit the dignity of the House. He also said in the 15th Lok Sabha , the then Speaker (Meira Kumar) had suspended 45 BJP MPs.

Chowdhury, however, said his party was yet to understand on what basis the seven MPs were suspended and demanded that it should be reversed immediately. Claiming that Congress members held the chair in high regard, in fact, as “the Pope of the Vatican”, and they had never dishonoured the chair.

The Speaker had on Thursday suspended Congress MPs Gaurav Gogoi, TN Prathapan, Dean Kuriakose , Benny Behanan , Manickam Tagore, Rajmohan Unnithan and Gurjeet Singh Aujla for the remaining part of the budget session of Parliament.

