Cong slams PM Modi for excluding Prez Murmu from new Parliament inauguration

New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) The Congress on Sunday once again took a swipe at the BJP-led Central government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament House and excluded President Droupadi Murmu from the ceremony, and said that a "self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023".

Slamming the government for choosing May 28 for the event, Congress General Secretary communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh in a tweet said, "On this day, May 28th. (First Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal) Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. (VD) Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883."

He said, "The President -- the first Adivasi to become President -- is not allowed to fulfil her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the New Parliament building in 2023."

Targeting the Prime Minister, Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP said, "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.

"Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023."

Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal said, "At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then President Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined. 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."

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's husband Robert Vadra congratulated all political parties on the inauguration of the new building of India's Parliament and said that he was shocked that President Murmu was sidelined from the event.

In a Facebook post, Robert Vadra said, "It is truly shocking and it deeply saddened me that our President Droupadi Murmu was completely sidelined and wasn't given the respectful honour of inaugurating the New Parliament building. Not only this, she wasn't even invited to this historical event in our country."

He said that he was unable to understand why was this being allowed. "And why 'we, the citizens' are standing in bylanes and simply accepting this unconstitutional behaviour, by the ruling dispensation," said Vadra, who is the son-in-law of Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

He also urged the government to provide jobs to the youth along with the new Parliament building, deliver justice to the girls sitting at Jantar Mantar, provide relief to the people from inflation.

Vadra also said that the Prime Minister, in the rush to inaugurate the new Parliament building, has also forgotten that this authority should be given to our President. "The Congress and other opposition parties are continuously demanding to invite the President to this program and have the inauguration done by his hands," Vadra added.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi installed the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha chair and inaugurated the new Parliament House after a traditional 'puja' and 'havan'.

Besides Congress, 19 other opposition parties boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament House.