In a most severe castigation of the Narendra Modi Government, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi said here on Friday that “our country, our society and our freedoms” were currently under “systematic and sustained assault”, parliamentary majority was being used to “stifle debate and bulldose legislation” and the investigative agencies were being “misused” to target political opponents.
Speaking at the “India Today Conclave-2018” here, Sonia Gandhi tore into Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying: “Our very social DNA is being re-engineered. The resulting churn will unleash pent-up frustrations, resentment and anger with devastating consequences. Individuals can mesmerise for a while, but our republic needs impartial and robust institutions”.
“long-standing precedents that have stood the country well are being violated. Parliamentary majority is being interpreted as a licence to stifle debate and bulldose legislation. Political opponents are being targeted through the misuse of investigative agency. The judiciary is in turmoil. Civil society is being silenced. University and students are being straight-jacketed,” she said, during her nearly hour-long speech.
later, during a question-answer session with India Today’s Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group Aroon Poorie, Gandhi debunked the ruling BJP’s “skilfull packaging and lavish marketing” of its initiatives and said that its “huge, fantastic” but failed promises like “Rs 15 lakh for every person’s bank accounts and jobs” might boomerang on the Modi Government. “I am confident that the BJP’s Achhe Din will turn into “Shining India” that brought us to power (in 2004),” she said.
Responding to a pointed query as to what did she think of Modi, the former UPA chairperson referred to her earlier speech and said: “I have just read out full Ramayan, you are now asking me: what about Sita and RamIJ”. listening to her tongue-in-cheek remark, the audience at the conclave broke into peals of laughter.
Attributing the recent disruptions by the Opposition in Parliament to the Government’s determined efforts to scuttle its voice on issues of public importance like PNB Bank fraud, Gandhi said that she did not expect the stalemate between the Government and Opposition in Parliament to end as long as the Modi dispensation did not change its approach towards its political rivals. “It (the disruptions in Parliament) cannot be fixed with the way the present Government is running Parliament. It is impossible. It is because they (Government) are not willing to allow us to speak in Parliament. Then what is Parliament forIJ Is it not forum where debates take placeIJ (if that is not the case), we might as well shut Parliament and go home”.
Gandhi said she was aware that the people at large were possibly angry with the Congress because its members were making noise in Parliament “(If we are disrupting the proceedings), there is a serious reason for it. Parliamentary rules are not followed. In the present set up, there is not spirit of accommodation on the part of the Government. As far as Opposition is concerned, it is our right (to demand debates). Things worked well when the Prime Minister Vajpayee was there”.
When asked to compare Modi with former Prime Minister A B Vajpyaee, Gandhi said: “Vajpayee had great respect for parliamentary procedure. The Speaker then was a Speaker who ought to be. You have to hear both sides”.
Earlier, in her speech, Gandhi charged that the ‘our country, our society, our freedoms — all are now under systematic and sustained assault. Make no mistake about it’. “This is a well sort-out project long in the making to refashion the very idea of India. It involves rewriting history, falsifying facts, slander nation-builders and fanning prejudice and bigotry,” she said.
She demanded to know if India was “really a giant black hole before May 16, 2014 and did India’s march to progress, prosperity and greatness begin only four years ago”. “Is this claim not an insult to the intelligence of our peopleIJ This deliberate unwillingness to acknowledge and commend what our country has achieved is nothing but arrogance. This cynical running down of our past accomplishments, which have been a huge collective endeavour of the people of India, is nothing but conceit. It is not here a matter of taking credit. It is simply a matter of recognising India’s strength and strenuous efforts over the past decades,” she said.
Expressing serious concern about the happenings across the country after the advent of the Modi Government in 2014, Gandhi said: “The foundational principles and values of our Constitution are being willfully shredded. Callous remarks about changing the Constitution point to a deliberate attempt to subvert the essence of India that it enshrines. Provocative statements from the ruling establishment are not random or accidental. They are part of a dangerous design. Fear and intimidation are the order of the day”.
“Alternative voices are being silenced, literally in far too many cases through violence, even murdered. The freedom to think for oneself, to differ and disagree, to eat according to one’s choice, to meet or marry, according to one’s wishes - all this and more is under attack.
Where amity and harmony were encouraged, religious tensions are being fuelled. Vigilante mobs and private armies have been let loose with state patronage,” she said.
“There is shocking insensitivity to atrocities on Dalits and women. Our society is being polarised with an eye to winning elections,” she said.
Wondering if “maximum governance” meant “minimum truth” and “alternative facts” take the place of uncomfortable reality, Gandhi came down heavily on the Modi Government for its failure to create as many jobs as it had promised: “ Everyone knows that the employment situation is grim. But all of a sudden, we are told that 7.5 million jobs were created in 2017. This claim, of course, has been widely debunked. But, does that really make a differenceIJ No, it doesn’t. Because as soon as one myth is demolished, another takes its place”.
Similarly, the former Congress president minced no words when it came to slamming the Modi Government on issues like demonetisation, GST and famers’ distress across the country. “I don’t need to remind the audience of how the narrative kept shifting as demonetisation took the economy downriver or the chopping and changing that went with the GST, a reform that was first stymied and then implemented in stubborn haste. Or, the belated recognition, although half-hearted, of growing farmer distress,” Gandhi said, adding that the RTA Act brought in the previous UAP government to enhance transparency and fight corruption “is cold storage”,
Earlier, dwelling upon the subject “Reimagining India” of her speech, Gandhi lamented: “Today, we are presented with an alternative and indeed regressive vision of who we were as a people, what we are and what we should be. This re-imagination is based on a distorted perception of our history and it is a fatally flawed view of what we will secure our future”.
Giving her perspective of the re-imagination of India, Gandhi said: “Reimagining India must entail a re-dedication to the core values and guiding principles of our Constitution in letter and spirit, in precept and practice. We need to reaffirm our resolve to protect and strengthen institutions and institutional processes. We need to acknowledge that while economic growth must be rapid, it must also be inclusive and sustainable”.