NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi faces a privilege issue in Parliament for referring to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as “Arun Jaitlie.” On Saturday Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu sent a privilege notice against Rahul to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, claiming that “prima facie there is an issue of privilege.” Naidu referred the issue to Mahajan as Rahul is a Lok Sabha member.

The privilege motion was served by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Bhupendra Yadav, who accused Rahul of using “derogatory” language against Jaitley.

The Lok Sabha ethics panel chaired by BJP veteran LK Advani has with it a complaint against Rahul already.

Rahul had tweeted on Dec.27: “Dear Mr ‘Jaitlie’ — thank you for reminding India that our prime minister never means what he says or says what he means.” The tweet was in response to Jaitley’s statement in Rajya Sabha about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s accusation against former prime minister Manmohan Singh and other Congress leaders. Modi had alleged during the Gujarat election campaign that Congress conspired with Pakistan to install Ahmed Patel as Gujarat chief minister.

Reacting to the privilege notice, Congress leader Anand Sharma said, “The truth is that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi said something about Vice-President Naidu and former PM Manmohan Singh. The Finance Minister defended that by claiming it was not the PM’s intention. If political comments and tweets have to become a matter of privilege then every top minister should be served with such a notice.” Yadav had alleged that there is a “breach of privilege” by Rahul as he used “derogatory words” against Jaitley, by twisting his name. He said Rahul had “deliberately twisted” the spelling of Jaitley’s surname to Jaitlie, which was “highly derogatory.” Moving the privilege notice, Yadav said in the upper house: “The members of this House have dignity. The name of the Leader of the House Arun Jaitley has been intentionally published by the Congress president with malafide intentions to defame this House. It constitutes an affront to the dignity of the House.”