The parliamentary lexicon

In the heated discussion on the controversial AgustaWestland chopper deal in Parliament, opposition members of Parliament (MPs) attacked the treasury benches, during which the word "ghotala" was used several times. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson P J Kurien took objection to this, saying the word "ghotala" was "unparliamentary", and should be expunged from the official parliamentary debate records. Refuting this strongly, the opposition members, such as Samajwadi Party's Naresh Agarwal derided it as "western mentality in which the English word 'scam' is parliamentary but the word 'ghotala' is not". Another senior MP Ramgopal Yadav, too, joined in defending the word, to which Kurien pleaded that he was only making an observation but had decided not to expunge the word. Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad had the final say in the matter when he remarked, "If 'ghotala' or scams are 'parliamentary', how can exposing 'ghotala' or scams be 'unparliamentary'!"