Nehru finished off soul of Constitution, Indira Gandhi murdered it: Anurag Thakur

Initiating the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha, Thakur hit out at the Congress, saying the party had failed to win even 100 seats, while the BJP alone had more seats than the entire INDIA alliance. He said the mandate of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was against the Opposition’s “politics of fear and corruption”.

“The mandate is for the politics of uniting the country, not breaking it. This mandate is one that makes opponents of the Constitution sit in the Opposition for the third time… In their time, there were economic failures, policy paralysis, scams and crony capitalism. In the 10 years of the Modi government, there has not been an allegation of corruption of even Re 1,” Thakur said.

“Nehruji had finished off the soul of the Constitution. The first attack on the Constitution was 15 months after it was enacted,” he said, referring to the amendment to Article 19 in 1951. “Indiraji went beyond Pandit Nehru. In 1975, the Constitution was murdered when the country saw Emergency,” Thakur said.

He said those who were jailed during the Emergency, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, were now in the INDIA alliance with the Congress.

He said Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had enjoyed “power without responsibility”, but now he has to attend Parliament as he had been appointed to the post this time.

Seconding the motion, BJP MP from New Delhi Bansuri Swaraj, in her maiden address in the Lok Sabha, hit out at the Opposition for creating a “Constitutional crisis” in Delhi as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was running the government from jail.

“First, Delhi was struggling for water and now, with water….there is a dearth of competence and talent … there is a policy paralysis and lack of governance…,” Swaraj said.

As a lawyer, she said the new criminal laws that came into effect Monday were focused on justice. There was a “sense of reformation” at the heart of the laws, she said.