Opposition parties on Sunday continued with their criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he inaugurated the new Parliament building, saying a “self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures” opened the new complex.
Around 20 Opposition parties, including the Congress, boycotted the event alleging that President Droupadi Murmu has been denied the right to inaugurate the building and called it an insult to the first woman President from the tribal community. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the people. Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary, said, “On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.” Ramesh also said it is on the same day that President Droupadi Murmu -- the first woman from the tribal community to become President — is not allowed to perform her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building. Trinamool Congress said the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the installation of the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber Sunday showed the tendency of the PM to “hog the entire limelight” during such a solemn occasion.
The Left parties too hit out at Modi, comparing the inauguration of the new parliament building by him with the coronation of a monarch and relegating the people of the country to “subjects (‘praja’)”.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said Parliament is the voice of the people but the Prime Minister is treating the inauguration of the new building like a “coronation”. “Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as (a) coronation,” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi soon after Modi inaugurated the building.
NCP president Sharad Pawar said that various rituals performed at the inauguration of the new Parliament building in New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi show that the country was being taken backwards by decades.
He said the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had envisaged a society having a scientific temperament, but what happened at the new Parliament inauguration ceremony was opposite to that as Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.
Speaking to reporters in Pune, Pawar said, “There is a huge difference between the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru talking about the concept of modern India and a series of rituals performed at the new Parliament building today in New Delhi. I fear that we are taking our country backward by decades.” “One cannot compromise on science. Nehru was persistent about his wish to form a society with scientific temperament. But what is happening today at the inaugural ceremony of the new parliament building is exactly the opposite of what Nehru had envisaged,” he said.
