Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: The raging political row over the Youth Congress’ protest at the global AI summit echoed Tuesday at a parliamentary committee meeting as it passed a resolution condemning the incident amid dissent by MPs from different opposition parties.“The committee would like to place on record its appreciation for successfully organizing the India Al Impact Summit by the Ministry of Electronics & IT under the able leadership of PM Narendra Modi. The committee also condemns the unfortunate incident happened on 20-2-2026 at the venue of the India Al Summit,” the resolution shared by the panel’s chairperson, Nishikant Dubey, said.It was carried by a majority vote, with 10 MPs affiliated to the BJP-led alliance voting for it and six, including from Congress, TMC, SS(UBT) and Samajwadi Party, polling against it, sources said.Though it is not common for parliamentary committees to take up issues outside their listed agenda, official sources said rules permit them to convey their sense on matters of importance, more so as the summit was hosted by the IT ministry, which is overseen by the Dubey-led panel.An opposition MP claimed they protested because the committee was wading into “politics” over the protest and noted that members of even non-Congress parties voted against the resolution despite some like Samajwadi Party having spoken against the shirtless demonstration of Youth Congress members.BJP MP Amar Pal Maurya proposed the resolution. He told TOI, “The resolution was for condemning the incident that tried to malign the country’s image and was not against any party. Everyone should have supported it. In fact, those who did not were doing politics.”Those who voted against it included Priyanka Chaturvedi of SS(UBT), Devesh Shakya of Samajwadi Party and Saket Gokhale of TMC, sources said.The resolution lauded the five-day summit as a “grand success”, emphasising that its declaration from 91 countries and leading companies committed to inclusive Al development. The companies announced over USD 200 billion Al investment in India, it said, adding that Google besides committing for a big data centre in India also pledged to lay direct sea cable link between India and the USA.
