Union Minister of State for Road Transport Ajay Tamta was asked to sit down in the Lok Sabha after he failed to answer a transportation query from a Congress MP.
Congress MP from Karauli-Dholpur, Bhajan Lal Jatav, asked Tamta about the criteria for declaring a national highway. Noting that there are three pilgrimage sites under his parliamentary constituency, Jatav asked "Are you considering designating the Mumbai Motorway, Pinan, Mahua to Karauli, Karauli to Kailadevi, and Pinan to Mahua as national highways?"
Speaker Om Birla joked with Jatav, saying, "You have been the PWD minister, you should know how NH is declared." Jatav said that he wished to know the criteria for designating a national highway.
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Responding to Jatav's query, Tamta said that he will answer the question about Maharashtra that the Congress MP had asked, to which Speaker Om Birla corrected him, "He hasn't asked about Maharashtra."
Then again Tamta said that the Congress MP had some query about Rajasthan, "I will answer that". The Speaker said, "He doesn't want to know about Rajasthan, he is asking about the criteria for national highway declaration."
Tamta began explaining about the national highways prior to and after 2014. He said that as of 2014, there were 91,281 km of NH, adding that 1,41,136 km of NH have been built under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's regime.
However, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla asked the House to move on to the next question and motioned Tamta to sit down.
Notably, this scene in the Lower House has sparked a row across social media, with several netizens questioning the minister's response to the opposition's query.
