Former Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla of “hurting” his parliamentary rights by restricting him on questioning the government over wilful bank defaulters.

Gandhi launched the allegation against Birla following the Question Hour in which he raised a supplementary question on wilful defaulters.

“I had asked a simple question about the names of 500 wilful defaulters. But I was not given a clear answer. What hurt me was that the Speaker did not allow me to ask a supplementary question which is my right as a member of Parliament,” he told reporters.

During the Question Hour, Rahul Gandhi had asked the supplementary question when Question No 305 regarding “Wilful defaulters” was read.

Asking the government, Gandhi said, “The Indian economy is going through a very difficult period. Our banking system is practically not working any more. Banks are failing. And I think more banks are going to fail as a result of the current global situation.

“The central cause of this failure of banks and the central cause of unemployment is the hollowing out. This is because of stealing of money from the banks by a large number of people.

“I had asked a very simple question. Who are the top 50 willful defaulters? I was not replied properly. Prime Minister said that those stolen money from Indian Banks will be caught. I asked the name of 50 willful defaulters and I could not get the names. My first question is what the names of those 50 defaulters are.”

In reply to the question, MoS Finance, Anurag Thakur took a dig at the previous Congress governments saying, “A list of wilful defaulters is available on the website. There is nothing to hide. All these people took money went away during their government. The question posed by a senior member of the House shows his lack of understanding of the subject”.

Meanwhile, treasury benches created ruckus and the Speaker gave chance to another MP to raise other question and Gandhi could not get a chance to put his point properly.

There was a brief verbal discussion between Gandhi and the Speaker when the Congress leader was directed by the chair to come on his point and not try to speak like an “advocate”.