Mukesh Ranjan
New Delhi, February 9
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday fired fresh salvos at the Opposition in Parliament, declaring that he alone outweighs all his opponents, and the more dirt they fling at him, the bigger the lotus (BJP’s election symbol) will bloom.
Nehru surname jibe
I want to ask if Nehruji’s legacy is so valuable to them, why did they (Cong leaders) not keep the Nehru surname?
Cong abused Art 356
Which government abused Article 356 on 90 occasions? Indira Gandhi invoked it 50 times to dislodge elected govts…
Kharge writes to Dhankhar
- Taking exception to the expunction of certain remarks from his speech in the RS on Wednesday, LoP Mallikarjun Kharge shot off a letter to Chairman Dhankhar
- ‘It will be an inversion of the system of governance if Oppn MPs are to probe, gather proof & then raise issues,’ he said
“Desh dekh raha hai, ek akela kitno ko bhari pad raha hai (the country is watching how one person is outweighing so many others),” said the PM unfazed by the repeated disruptions in the Rajya Sabha by the Opposition, which raised “Modi-Adani bhai bhai” slogans.
In his 90-minute reply to the Motion of Thanks on President’s Address to Parliament, the PM unleashed a stinging attack on the Congress for practising “politics of tokenism” and warned Opposition-ruled states against playing with the financial health of the country in a veiled reference to the restoration of the old pension scheme. Taking a swipe at the Congress, which has criticised the government for ignoring Jawaharlal Nehru’s efforts in nation-building, Modi asked if the first Prime Minister was so great then why have his scions never used his surname. He also said that as per reports, the Congress had named as many as 600 schemes after the Nehru-Gandhi family.
In a no-holds-barred attack against the grand old party, he accused it of trampling the rights of states and regional parties by dismissing elected governments on 90 occasions by “misusing” Article 356 of the Constitution. Indira Gandhi alone had used the Article 50 times to dismiss governments, he added.
He also accused the party of adopting only “tokenism” in solving problems the country faced and said it was bothered only about its political ambitions and not the welfare of the nation. “We don’t believe in tokenism. We have chosen the path of hard work in taking the country forward,” he said.
Amidst the opposition members shouting for a probe by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) into allegations raised against the Adani Group by the US-based Hindenburg Research firm, Modi said, “Jitna keechad uchaloge, kamal utna hi zyada khilega (the more dirt you fling, the bigger the kamal will bloom).”
“Some people’s behaviour and language are disappointing not just for the House but for the country,” he said in an oblique reference to the allegations opposition parties levelled against him.
“Mallikarjun Kharge ji yesterday said they had laid the foundation for development. But when I assessed everything minutely, starting from 2014… I found they (the Congress) had dug pits and pits,” the PM said, referring to the Leader of Opposition’s remark made yesterday that the BJP government could build only on a Congress foundation.
The RS passed the Motion of Thanks with a voice vote with all opposition amendments negated.