Journalism of Courage
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia about a “huge difference between pre and post-2014 India” on Wednesday received a sharp response from the Congress, which said the PM broke the convention of not commenting on domestic politics at an international forum.
Addressing the Indian diaspora in Bali on Tuesday, Modi said, “The huge difference between pre and post-2014 India is that of speed and scale. Today, India is moving ahead at an unprecedented speed and scale.” He added that India “now builds the biggest statues and the biggest stadiums”.
The Modi-led government came to power in 2014. The PM said further, “We don’t dream small anymore. Since 2014, we have opened more than 320 million bank accounts. More than the population of the USA. Today, India is the fastest-growing large economy in the world.”
Criticising the PM’s “self-obsession”, Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh tweeted on Wednesday, “It’s long been a tradition that our PMs do not carry their domestic politics, prejudices & partisanship to Indian audiences abroad. This healthy convention was broken after May 2014, the latest example being in Indonesia …”
Earlier, Ramesh was critical of the image of a lotus being used in the G20’s official logo. On November 10, Ramesh said it was shocking that the BJP’s election symbol (lotus) was part of the G20 logo, adding that the prime minister and his party would not lose any opportunity to promote themselves.
“Over 70 years ago, Nehru rejected the proposal to make Congress flag the flag of India. Now, BJP’s election symbol has become (the) official logo for India’s presidency of G20!” the Congress leader tweeted.
The BJP hit back, with Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri saying: “God alone knows why the Congress party chooses to denigrate and undermine every national symbol even as it is desperately out to ‘jodo’ (unite) itself.”
India will assume the presidency of the grouping from the current chair Indonesia on December 1. The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies comprising Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union.
(With PTI inputs)
