The Congress on Monday set the stage for a turbulent Budget Session as it reached out to the “like minded parties” to corner the Modi Government. Accusing the Centre of “muzzling” voice of Opposition, civil society and students, Congress president Sonia Gandhi alleged that the RSS-backed BJP Government seems hell-bent on destroying the spirit of enquiry, questioning, debate and dissent across the country.
During the Congress Working Committee (CWC) convened to strategise the floor management during Budget Session, the Congress members passed a resolution accusing the RSS of targetting educational institutions to impose its ideology in varsities, colleges.
In her statement at the CWC, Sonia in the presence of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, said that disturbing developments have taken place in recent months across the country.
“The Congress will, in cooperation with other like-minded parties, raise these and other issues when Parliament begins. Parliament’s duty is to debate and legislate. The Congress is fully conscious of its duties. It has always been constructive when in Opposition. But the responsibility for creating an atmosphere conducive to the smooth functioning of Parliament is that of the Government. It is actually the Government that has miserably failed to ensure that Parliament functions normally,” Sonia said in her address to the CWC members.
“These have been engineered by the BJP, RSS and affiliated organisations. What has been happening is part of a deliberate plan to divert attention from the Central Government’s numerous failures — the failures to revive the economy, to control food inflation, to translate grandiose announcements into reality on the ground, to deal effectively with growing rural distress and to improve the internal security situation,” Sonia said.
In the wake of the Arunachal Pradesh crisis, Sonia alleged that constitutional values and democratic norms are under systematic assault. “What has been done in Arunachal Pradesh, a most sensitive and strategic border State, is nothing but murder of the Constitution,” Sonia added.
At the backdrop of JNU issues, Sonia said a totally manufactured debate on patriotism and nationalism is being generated through manipulated news clips to cover up the Government’s failures and its heavy-handedness in dealing with student protesters. “The Government has also made a mockery of its commitment to social justice by making insensitive statements on the background of a young student in another institution of higher learning, who was forced to take his promising life because of caste discrimination,” she said.
As chief of the Congress, Sonia alleged professional agencies like the NIA have been completely emasculated calling into serious question the Government’s commitment to fighting terrorism.
“The voices of civil society organisations, NGOs and social activists who are playing a valuable role are being muzzled and their credentials made suspect. The fabric of communal harmony is being systematically eroded and the atmosphere for social harmony being systematically vitiated. The language used by BJP leaders is objectionable, unacceptable and must be condemned by one and all. An organisation that never took part in the freedom movement, that never showed any respect to the Father of the Nation and which never demonstrated any devotion to the national flag is hardly in a position to hand out certificates of patriotism and nationalism to Congress and its leadership,” she said.