A day after the conferment of top national award from Japan to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress took the opportunity to attack the incumbent PM saying that the “world values work not just rhetoric”.
“Dr Manmohan Singh 1st Indian-Receive Japan’s highest civilian Honour! Congrats! World values work not just rhetoric,” party leader Ajay Maken posted on micro-blogging site Twitter in an obvious reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Maken, who is the chairman of AICC’s media department, also accused the media of ignoring the rare honour to the party leader and former Prime Minister. “Dr Singh getting highest civilian award in Japan. National media ignores it! The Nation Wants to Know: Is Media Patriotic or just BJP BhaktIJ” he said in another tweet.
Singh will be awarded Japan’s ‘The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers’ for his “significant contribution to the enhancement of relations and promotion of friendship” between Japan and India for about 35 years. It is a “high-level National Order” and a rare honour awarded to those who are recognised for their distinguished contribution, a Japanese Embassy statement has said.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi too congratulated the former Prime Minister upon being awarded Japan’s high civilian order — The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers. “A rare and well-deserved recognition of a statesman by the Government of Japan, the award to Dr Singh makes us, as indeed the entire nation proud,” she said.
Sonia said that the award rightly recognises Singh’s distinguished and significant contributions towards enhancement of relations and the promotion of friendship between Japan and India for 35 years.
Singh had said he was truly honoured and felt “humbled by the love and affection showered upon me by the people and Government of Japan.” He had said it had been his dream to see India-Japan relationship grow and prosper and “this is an objective towards which I have worked, not only in my tenure as the Prime Minister of India, but across the larger part of my career in public service”.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also congratulated Singh, saying the award recognises the former Prime Minister’s immense contribution to strengthening bilateral ties and promoting friendship between the two countries. “I am proud, as all Indians are today of Singh’s statesmanship and farsightedness in guiding India-Japan relations over the course of his long and distinguished career in public service,” said Rahul.