The Congress led Opposition parties in lambasting May 28 inauguration of the new Parliament building, likening it to a “coronation”, and a “self-glorifying” event conducted with utter disdain for the scientific temper. In protest over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to inaugurate the new building himself, without even inviting President Droupadi Murmu, 22 Opposition parties boycotted the event.
Mr. Modi inaugurated the new structure amid Vedic chants, and installed the Sengol— a historic sceptre which had been handed over to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 — in the new Lok Sabha chamber.
“Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation,” former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi, soon after the PM inaugurated the building.
President excluded
In a similar vein, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that democracy does not run from buildings, but rather functions through the voice of the people. “The three lies of the BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country -- democracy, nationalism and Beti Bachao,” Mr Kharge tweeted, comparing the exclusion of President Murmu from the event to the “forcible” removal of wrestlers protesting at the Jantar Mantar as they were trying to march towards Parliament.
“At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Hon’ble President Sh. Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined,” said K.C. Venugopal, the Congress general secretary for organisation. “It is the upper caste, anti-backward mindset of the RSS because of which they are denied the respect that their high constitutional office deserves. Their deliberate exclusion shows PM Modi will use them as tokens for his electoral politics, but will not allow them to be part of such significant and historic occasions,” Mr. Venugopal tweeted.
‘Self-glorifying’
Another senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that a “self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the new Parliament building in 2023.”
Other parties echoed the Congress view. Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the event declared the advent of a “new India” which comes in the absence of the President, Vice President and Opposition parties. “Sengol belongs to the period of feudal monarchies, emperors and kings. Indian people overthrew such bondage and ushered in a secular democratic republic where every citizen is equal,” he said, adding that the sceptre had no role in a democracy where people elected their government.
‘No mention of Ambedkar’
The Communist Party of India’s D. Raja said that while “restoring” the Sengol to its glory, the Prime Minister forgot the very foundations of the Indian republic. “PM did not even mention the prime architect of our Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar. It’s clear which path Modi is taking India, reinforcing hierarchies of caste, religion and medieval social order,” he said.
The government has maintained that the handing over of the Sengol to Nehru had symbolised the transfer of power from the British, while the Congress has said that there was no documentary evidence of this.
‘Taking India backwards’
On Sunday, NCP president Sharad Pawar said that while Nehru had envisaged an India built with a scientific temperament, what happened at the inauguration of the new Parliament building was totally different.
“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,” Mr. Pawar said in Pune. The senior leader added that there could not be any compromise on science.
The Trinamool Congress, which was one of the first parties to have announced its boycott of the inauguration, said that the event was akin to an “I only love myself day”. TMC MP Derek O’ Brien added that Mr. Modi and his government have mocked and insulted Parliament over the last nine years.
BSP chief’s congratulations
Meanwhile, the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, who was among the few non-BJP leaders who had opposed the boycott of the event, congratulated the government for the new Parliament building and said that it should be used in the interest of the country. Though the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister could not attend the inauguration, her party MP Riteish Mishra was present.
Interestingly, Danish Ali, the BSP MP from Amroha, did not attend the event. Mr. Ali had earlier sought unity among Opposition parties on the issue. On Sunday, the MP tweeted that, on the one hand a chapter on Allama Iqbal was removed from the Delhi University syllabus, while on the other hand, Sare Jahan Se Achcha was playing in the background during the Parliament inauguration.
