RJD’s coffin comparison to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘coronation’ jibe: Oppn hits out at govt over new Parliament inauguration

ये क्या है? pic.twitter.com/9NF9iSqh4L

— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) May 28, 2023

BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi told the news agency, “No political comments should be made on the day when the new Parliament building is being inaugurated today. All political parties should rise above politics and respect this.”

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Other Opposition parties and leaders too criticised the unveiling of the new Parliament building. The Congress pointed out that the new Parliament building was being inaugurated on the birth anniversary of Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar. The Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, tweeted, “On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out PM Modi, saying, “Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as a rajyabhishek (coronation)”.

Ramesh said President Droupadi Murmu, the first Adivasi to become President, was not allowed to fulfil her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building. “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.

The Congress, along with 19 other parties, boycotted the inauguration ceremony.

Speaking about the event, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said, “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?”

Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Swami Prasad Maurya criticised the ceremony held to install the “Sengol” sceptre in the Parliament building. Amid chants of Vedic hymns by priests of Karnataka’s Shringeri Math, the PM performed “Ganapati Homam” to invoke the gods to bless the inauguration of the new building.

“It is extremely unfortunate that only fundamentalist Brahmin gurus of the south were called in the installation worship of Sengol sceptre. If the BJP government had faith in India as a secular sovereign nation, then all the religious leaders of the country, such as Buddhist Dharmacharyas (monks), Jain Acharyas (sages), Guru Granthis, Muslim religious leaders (Maulanas), Christian religious leaders (pastors), should have been invited. By not doing so, the BJP has shown its corrupt mentality and thinking full of hatred. Although the BJP government is walking on the path of a monarchy by establishing the Sengol sceptre, it is also trying to establish Brahminism by calling the Brahmin religious leaders of the south.”