Parliament building inauguration: 21 parties boycott, Congress calls it ‘rajyabhishek’

“Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as a rajyabhishek (coronation),” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.

संसद लोगों की आवाज़ है!

प्रधानमंत्री संसद भवन के उद्घाटन को राज्याभिषेक समझ रहे हैं।

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 28, 2023

Rahul Gandhi’s party colleague Jairam Ramesh said, “What we witnessed on August 15th, 1947 was the birth of a new democratic nation. What we saw today was a shameless self-coronation.” The first Adivasi to become President, was not allowed to fulfill her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building, he said.

25 days after Manipur started burning, things have turned from bad to worse on the eve of the long-awaited visit of the Union Home Minister to Imphal. Despite Article 355 being imposed there’s a total and complete breakdown of law & order and administration in the state.

It’s…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) May 28, 2023

“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,” he said, adding that the fabrication of facts by “distorians” and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023.

Echoed AICC general secretary K C Venugopal. “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 was 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,” he said.

Interestingly, Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor took a nuanced take on the Sengol controversy and said both the government and the opposition have good arguments on the issue. He, however, agreed with his party’s view that the new Parliament building should have been inaugurated by the President, in accordance with the Constitution. “But that train has left the station,” he said.

A tweet by the RJD comparing the new Parliament building to a coffin triggered another row. Posting photos of a coffin and the new building, the RJD tweeted: “What is this?” This drew a flurry of angry comments online and an angry response from the BJP. BJP. “A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin,” ANI quoted BJP leader Sushil Modi as saying. The RJD said the BJP and others are probably taking the meme too literally.

Several other opposition parties too hit out at the Prime Minister. “I am happy I didn’t go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only?” said NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Trinamool leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien said parliamentary democracy was getting undermined over the years. “Now that PM Modi is done with his ‘I Only Love Myself Day’, let us remind him of how he and his government have mocked and insulted Parliament in the last nine years: The PM has answered zero questions in Parliament. The number of Bills scrutinised by Parliamentary Committees has come down from 7 out of 10 Bills earlier, to just 1 out of 10 Bills now. The number of Ordinances promulgated by the Modi government has more than doubled compared to earlier. Eight sessions of Parliament have been adjourned before the scheduled date. Members from the Opposition have been robbed of their right to vote on Bills. It has been four years, but there is still no Deputy Speaker in Lok Sabha. Stop undermining our great Parliamentary democracy,” he said.

“This is not a transfer of power, this is called a coronation. People of India fought the British, won the Republic and resolved to create a secular, democratic republic. Modi is trying to turn the Parliament into a medieval court, citizens into subjects & himself into an emperor,” CPI General Secretary D Raja tweeted along with a picture of Modi receiving the sceptre.

“Modi inaugurates the new Parliament building amidst loud propaganda: “New Parliament, New India. This declaration of a New India comes in the absence of the President of India, Vice President of India & opposition parties! India = Nation & Citizen New India = Raja & Praja,” CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said.

On the sengol controversy, Tharoor said, “The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty and the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people and that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament, and is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right.”

The two positions, he said, were “reconcilable if one simply drops the debatable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof”. “Instead, we should simply say that the sengol sceptre is a traditional symbol of power and authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there and not with any monarch. Let us embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present,” Tharoor said.

On the party’s tweet showing a coffin, RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta said, “We have only drawn a symbolic comparison to suggest how democratic norms and traditions were forgotten during the inauguration of the new Parliament. While the first Parliament saw members of the Constituent Assembly at its inaugural function, we saw the gathering of priests at the new Parliament’s opening. We are saddened that the President of India was not invited to become part of the historic occasion. Our Parliament comprises the President of India and its two Houses.”

Yechury said the sengol, invoked by Modi, symbolised just and fair governance too besides divine sanction. “The opposite Kodungol symbolises authoritarianism. Modi invokes Sengol, but practices Kodungol. Sengol belongs to the period of feudal monarchies, emperors and kings. Indian people overthrew such bondages and ushered in a secular democratic Republic where every citizen is equal. Sengol has no role in a democracy where people elect the government,” he said.

CPI’s Raja said the Prime Minister forgot the foundations of the Republic while ‘restoring’ sengol to its glory. “The 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.