BJP says D K Suresh has no right to remain MP, questions Congress leaders' 'silence'

New Delhi: The BJP said on Friday that Congress leader D K Suresh has no right to remain an MP even for a minute, as it accused him of openly talking of breaking India, violating his oath of protecting the country's unity and sovereignty.

"Will the country's unity and sovereignty be torn into shreds for political benefits," BJP leader and former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference, as he hit out at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi besides their India bloc allies for maintaining a "conspicuous silence" over his "shameful" and "unconstitutional" comments.

D K Suresh, the Lok Sabha MP from Bangalore Rural and the brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, has stoked a row with his claims that injustice was being meted out to southern states in allocation of share in tax collection.

"Our tax money is being distributed to north India, if we don't condemn it there might arise a situation where we will have to demand for a separate nation," Suresh said on Thursday, commenting on the the interim budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Prasad said before contesting an election and after winning it, anyone takes oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the country's unity and sovereignty.

"He has committed a gross impropriety as an MP by openly talking of breaking-up of India. It is a clear violation of the constitution's main point of unity and integrity," he said.

In a swipe at Rahul Gandhi who had led his party's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' earlier and is now spearheading the 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', the BJP leader he is supposedly working to unite the country but has now disowned the comments of his party's MP.

While Congress leaders regularly charge the BJP with violating the Constitution and "abuse" Prime Minister Narendra Modi by calling him a dictator and alleging that he will not let elections take place in the future, they have maintained a conspicuous silence on such a comment by their MP against the constitution, Prasad said.

Rejecting the MP's charge of discrimination, he said Modi had recently inaugurated a Boeing facility in Karnataka and the state has been given a tax share of over Rs 1.35 lakh-crore during 2014-19 against Rs 53,996 crore during 2009-14 when the Congress-led UPA was in power.