Congress misused Article 356: Modi
Getting into the election mode, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his last major speech in Parliament before the Lok Sabha contest mocked attempts to forge anti-BJP coalition as mahamilawat (grand adulteration) and targeted the Opposition Congress for dynasty politics and presented a report card of his government.
While targeting the Congress, he said that his slogan of “Congressmukt bharat” (Congressfree India) was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi who had desired that the Congress should be disbanded after independence. “Mahatma Gandhi had wished disbanding of Congress. Cong-mukt Bharat is not my slogan but Gandhiji wanted it,” he said.
Attacking the main Opposition party in his
100-minute long reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, Mr Modi said, “There are two periods in time as far as India is concerned - BC and AD. BC stands for ‘Before Congress’, when nothing happened, and AD for ‘After Dynasty’, when everything happened.” This drew cheers and desk thumping from BJP MPs.
In a nutshell in his speech Mr Modi claimed that his four and a half years old government “achieved more, much more than what Congress had achieved since 1947”.
Reaching out to voters to give the NDA a clear mandate once again, the Prime Minister said, “In
2014, for the first time in
30 years, the people gave India its first full majority government. Now the mahamilawat (grand adulteration) is about to come”.
Only a party with brute majority “can work for the welfare of the nation” and not a “mahamilawat government,” he said, referring to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Kolkata rally last month where 26 Opposition parties had shared the dais to form an anti-BJP front.
As he focussed mainly on targeting the Congress regime, Mr Modi yet again played the nationalist card by highlighting Army’s “surgical strike”. “You (Congress) had left Army handicapped; it was not in a position to carry out surgical strikes,” he claimed.
Countering the Congress allegation of threat to institutions under the NDA rule, Mr Modi blamed the Congress for violating democratic norms and dismissing elected governments.
“The Congress imposed Emergency, but they say Modi is destroying institutions. Congress insults Army, calls the Army chief a ‘goonda’ but they say Modi is destroying institutions,” the Prime Minister said in his reply.
The Congress misused Article 356 to dismiss state governments several times. Indira Gandhi herself dismissed state governments 50 times, Mr Modi said.
Unleashing his party’s aggressive nationalism mantra, Mr Modi rolled his eyes, flailed his arms and tried to look anguished and angry as he said, “In hating Modi, the Opposition has begun to hate the nation. That is why their leaders go to London and do press conferences to show India in bad light.”