Varun Gandhi says PMO official’s remark on MPs’ salary increment was ‘in jest’  

Varun Gandhi.

Varun Gandhi, BJP member of Parliament from Sultanpur, on Thursday, clarified that the remark made by the Prime Minister Office’s official about initiating the process for increasing the parliamentarians’ salary by setting up an institutional arrangement was “in jest”. However, Gandhi also thanked the prime minister, Narendra Modi, for setting up an institutionalized arrangement for revising MPs’ salary.

Gandhi said when he raised the issue about the increment of the MPs’ salary, he “got a call from PMO”, who then said, “Why are you increasing our troubles?”

Speaking to reporters, Gandhi said, “One of the issues that I stress upon in my talks, both at educational institutions and on other civil society platforms, is the need for systemic political reform. In this vein in Bhiwani, Haryana, I spoke about the need for members of Parliament and MLAs not to arrogate themselves the right to increase their salaries at will. I stated that even a PMO official had remarked, in jest, that my pressing this issue was becoming a bit of a problem.”

“I then mentioned that to my surprise the PM took this issue up and made sure that an institutional arrangement was made which would now review and decide increments for legislators rather than the present ad-hoc arrangement. I thanked him for the same,” Gandhi added.

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