Venkaiah Naidu pulls up minister for using 'I beg' to lay papers

New Delhi, July 19: Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu today pulled up Union Minister Jitendra Singh for using the "colonial" expression of "I beg to" while laying official papers on the table of the House.

When the House met for the day, Singh laid the papers concerning the Department of Space, saying that "I beg to lay papers listed against my name...".

This led Vice-President Naidu to say "we have given up begging one year back. You are lagging."

He said members can just state that "I rise to present a report etc. They need not beg," he said.

Naidu said though the expression "I beg to.." was not unparliamentary, it would be "proper to Indianise it".

After taking over as the Rajya Sabha Chairman last year, Mr Naidu had advised ministers and members not to use the term "beg" while tabling the listed official papers in the House.

As a practice, most of them earlier used to say "I beg to lay the papers ... listed against my name in today's order paper."

He had asked members to shed the "imperial mindset" of using "I beg to lay" the papers in the House. Almost all have followed his instructions but there have been occasional slip-ups.

Minister of State for Law and Justice PP Chaudhary had used the term "beg" on the opening day of the Winter Session of Parliament in December last year, leading Naidu to remind him of the new norm.

PTI