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26-05-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: India’s new parliament is set to be inaugurated this weekend amid a political row as 19 opposition parties say they will boycott the ceremony.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the building on Sunday but opposition leaders say India’s president, the highest constitutional authority, should open the building.
Leaders of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have accused the opposition of “playing political games”.
On Wednesday, 19 parties – including the main opposition Congress – issued a statement announcing their “collective decision” to boycott the inauguration ceremony.
They said that while the opening was “a momentous occasion”, Modi’s “decision to inaugurate the building by himself” was “a grave insult (and) a “direct assault” on India’s democracy.
The statement also mentioned that opposition MPs had been “disqualified, suspended and muted” while “controversial legislations” were passed with little debate.
“When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building,” the parties added.
India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said that all political parties had been invited for the ceremony, and asked the opposition to not politicize the event.
“The government has requested all to be present. Everyone will act according to their own feelings,” he said in a press conference on Wednesday.
Relations between the governing BJP and most opposition parties are strained, often leading to an impasse during parliament sessions. Recently, opposition leaders protested after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from parliament after he was sentenced to jail in a defamation case.
Leaders from the governing National Democratic Alliance, led by the BJP, criticized the opposition statement, calling it “an egregious insult to our democracy and to their elected representatives”. They also asked the opposition to “think about the nation and not individual political gains”.
Opposition leaders have also criticized the government’s choice of date for the ceremony, which coincides with the birth anniversary of Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar. (Int’l News Desk)
