Lashing out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his comments on the Emergency, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said that Mr. Modi continues to be “arrogant even after his moral and political defeat”.
“Narendra Modiji, you are giving advice to the Opposition. You are reminding us of the 50-year-old Emergency, but have forgotten the last 10 years of Undeclared Emergency, which was ended by the people,” he added.
Recalling the Prime Minister’s words that “people need substance, not slogans”, the Congress chief said Mr. Modi should remind himself of this. Mr. Kharge said the nation was expecting the PM to say something on important issues. He said the country was hoping that the PM would show sympathy towards the nation’s youth in the wake of question paper leak in NEET and other recruitment examinations, but Mr. Modi “did not take any responsibility for the massive rigging and corruption of his government”.
“Modiji also remained silent about the recent train accident in West Bengal and the utter mismanagement of the Railways. Manipur has been in the grip of violence for the last 13 months, but Modiji did not bother to visit the State nor did he express any concern about the fresh violence in his speech today,” the Congress chief added.
Be it the floods in Assam and the northeast, inflation, the fall of the rupee or the exit poll stock market crash, or keeping the next Census pending for a long time, the Prime Minister has been completely silent, Mr. Kharge said.
“The Opposition and INDIA janbandhan want consensus in Parliament, we will keep raising the voice of the people in the House, on the streets and before everyone. We will protect the Constitution,” he said.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the Prime Minister has shown no evidence that he understood the true meaning of the people’s verdict “which saw him eking out only a narrow and dubious win in Varanasi”.
“The non-biological PM is telling the Opposition: substance, not slogans. INDIA is telling him: consensus, not confrontation. The non-biological PM is telling the Opposition: discussion, not disruption. INDIA is telling him: attendance, not absence,” Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X.
