Kharge Alleges Purification Ritual; Rajya Sabha Chairman Orders Probe

A very important leader named Mallikarjun Kharge gave a big speech at a rally in a town called Haldwani, in a state of India called Uttarakhand.

After he finished speaking, some people cleaned the stage where he stood using a special ceremony called a havan.

Cleaning a stage sounds okay, but here it was done as a kind of 'purification' ritual, as if they wanted to wash away something bad.

Mr. Kharge was very upset because he felt the cleaning was meant to insult him.

He said it reminded him of a very old and unfair practice called 'untouchability,' where people are treated badly because of the family they are born into, a practice that India's Constitution officially ended long ago.

He told the big meeting of leaders, called the Rajya Sabha, that the people who did the cleaning should be arrested.

The leader in charge of that meeting, Mr. Radhakrishnan, said that if untouchability is not a sin, there is no sin in the world, and asked the government to investigate.

A minister named Mr. Nadda said his party, the BJP, does not support such activities and promised an investigation.

Some people think the stage cleaning was a mean insult, while others say the Congress party is just making politics out of it.

Everyone agrees that untouchability is wrong and should never happen.