New Delhi: The newly-appointed leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi set the critical tone for the INDIA bloc on Monday when he anchored his first speech in the 18th Lok Sabha on the alleged environment of fear perpetuated by the Narendra Modi government over his last two terms.
Gandhi, who was responding to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, took on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for systematically deflecting attention from pertinent issues like inflation, job crisis and growing inequality by inducing anxiety among people on emotive issues of faith, even as he said that the Modi government has overseen “systematic attack on the constitution, on the idea of India, and anybody who opposed” BJP’s patronisation of “hate, untruth and violence”.
His critical intervention in the Motion of Thanks debate unfolded amidst dramatic scenes in the Lok Sabha. The BJP MPs hooted Gandhi as he rose to speak with chants of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Jai Shri Ram”, triggering a similar aggression from the opposition benches. Gandhi, too, responded to the slogans. “Jai Samvidhan,” he said, drawing applause from his party MPs.
Facing frequent interruptions from BJP MPs, Gandhi went on to talk about how different faiths advocated the ideas of non-violence in Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Christianity, but took a dig at BJP leaders as “those who call themselves Hindus” think of spreading only ideas of hate, untruth, and violence throughout the day.
In what resembled his speech alleging a nexus between the Modi government and industrial groups like Adani and Ambani in the 17th Lok Sabha, Gandhi brought out placards of different faiths to elaborate on how all religions believed in the idea of non-violence and to allege that the BJP has sullied the Hindu faith by misinterpreting its core messages and inciting its followers to hate others.
“Daro Mat, Darao Mat (Don’t fear, don’t scare others). This is the central message of all religions, and even Lord Shiva,” Gandhi said.
This prompted both the Prime Minister and Union home minister Amit Shah to intervene. Modi rose up to say, “(what the LoP) said was a very serious subject. Labeling the whole Hindu society as violent is an extremely serious matter.” Likewise, Shah demanded an apology from Gandhi and added, “There are so many people who call themselves Hindu with pride, and those who had imposed emergency and led the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 have no right to blame others for spreading an environment of fear.”
Gandhi and his party MPs flashed their palms, echoing what they called was “abhay mudra”, an Yogic posture meant to free one of all fears. To many others, the palm is also the Congress’s election symbol.
Taking off from here, Gandhi said that despite all the political hype around the Ram Mandir, the BJP lost in Ayodhya. Gandhi pointed at the newly-elected Samajwadi Party MP of Faizabad, Awadhesh Prasad, to say that Prasad was the message from Ayodhya. “BJP lost in Ayodhya because of the fear that it spread among people.”
He said that Ayodhya residents who lost their land for the newly-built airport haven’t been paid their due compensation as yet; the houses of many have been demolished for building a flashy Ayodhya, even as none among Ayodhya residents were called to the consecration ceremony of the Ram Mandir in which Prime Minister’s friend Gautam Adani was invited.
“Lord Shri Ram has now given a message to the BJP in Ayodhya,” he said.
Such a fear, Gandhi said, has taken deep roots not only among the people of India, but also Modi’s own aides and ministers. He said senior Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari greet him frequently but their attitude towards him changes the moment when the Prime Minister is around them. “Even BJP ministers are scared,” Gandhi said.
Prime Minister Modi immediately got up at this moment. “Speaker sir, our democracy and constitution have taught me that I should treat the LoP with utmost seriousness,” he said. Whether he was making a statement defending himself or taking a dig at Gandhi was unclear.
As speaker Om Birla repeatedly alerted Gandhi to stick to the theme of the President’s Address, Gandhi said that he was prompted to speak about these issues because the BJP MP Anurag Thakur spoke about Ayodhya and Ram Mandir as achievements of the Modi government and talked about attacks on Sanatan Dharma in his speech this morning.
Gandhi went on to narrate how a woman who he met during his Bharat Jodo Yatra explained her ordeal to him. He said that the woman told him that she faced domestic abuse because of her inability to buy groceries with her family’s income and cook for her husband. Gandhi went on to say that the back-breaking price rise of essential commodities during Modi’s tenure has jeopardised many women’s lives.
The Congress leader then hit out at the Centre’s Agnipath scheme for recruitment in armed forces, calling it a “use and throw” scheme that doesn’t guarantee pensions to those who risk their lives for the country, and drives a wedge between a permanent soldier and those temporarily recruited as Agniveer. While the defence minsiter Rajnath Singh responded that these were false allegations, home minister Amit Shah demanded an apology as he disrespected ‘brave’ Agniveers. But Gandhi said despite a difference of opinion between him and the ministers, the Agniveers knew what the harsh reality was of the Agnitpath scheme.
Gandhi then said how the Manipur conflict was allegedly wilfully neglected by the Centre. Manipur doesn’t exist for both the PM and the home minister. It is not a part of India for them, Gandhi said, as he added that the Centre’s neglect has only aided escalation of the conflict between two communities of Manipur.
He also touched upon issues of economic concern and questioned the logic of moves like demonetisation that according to Gandhi broke the backs of small and medium industries, leading to a severe job crisis in India. “The small and medium industries are now being targeted by central agencies like the IT department at a time when the flawed GST has already put them in a crisis,” he said, alleging that such draconian steps were being taken to empower big industrialists and remove these small entrepreneurs from the picture.
He also said that farmers of the country were also put under threat and fear by taking away their security by diluting the Land Acquisition Act and bringing in contentious farm laws to empower industrialists. “The roads on which farmers protested for a year are still blocked. You call them (protesting farmers) terrorists,” Gandhi said, in trying to elaborate on the Modi government’s “autocratic” nature.
He then criticised the government for frequent paper leaks, while invoking the recent fiasco over NEET admissions, highlighting what he called an “institutional failure”.
Gandhi reasoned that the alleged failures of the government on various fronts were because the BJP-RSS family was obsessed with spreading fear among different sections of the population, including the political class in the opposition, and perpetuating hate against minorities, farmers, Dalits and backward classes.
Gandhi also hinted at the alleged partisanship of the Lok Sabha speaker during Modi’s tenure. “Speaker sir, please forgive me for saying this…You are the final arbiter of what happens in the Lok Sabha…But I noticed something. When I shook your hand, you stood straight and shook your hand like this. When Modi ji shook your hand, you bowed down and shook your hand.”
“I respect you but I want to tell you that no one is bigger than the Speaker in the House…this is democracy and you are the leader of the House. You should not bow down in front of anyone…you are the last word in the Lok Sabha…I and the entire opposition are subservient to you,” Gandhi said, as BJP MPs shouted agitatedly in the other corner.
“I just don’t represent the Congress party. I represent different parties in opposition. It will bother me when the government unleashes its agencies and imprison leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren,” Gandhi said, as he gave his first speech as the LoP with the different parties representing the INDIA bloc standing firmly in his support.
Gandhi ended his speech by urging the government to work together without being “nasty and aggressive” towards the opposition. “Work without violence, work without hatred,” Gandhi said.
