Former Union Minister Anurag Thakur on July 1 said the mandate for the BJP’s third term in office was one for stability and development.
Opening the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, Mr. Thakur said India was once a fragile economy; in the past 10 years, the country has become the world’s fifth-largest and also the fastest-growing economy.
Soon, however, the BJP MP raised the Hindutva pitch, saying India was, is and will remain “Sanatan”.
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“Sanatan tha, Sanatan hai, Sanatan rahega (Sanatan was there, is there, will continue to be there),” he said. Sanatan (eternal way) is a phrase used by some to designate Hinduism as a unified religion.
Even as he congratulated Rahul Gandhi for becoming the Leader of Opposition, Mr. Thakur said that the Congress leader now has power with responsibility and “absentee landlordism will not work”.
“Will he sit in Lok Sabha all day?... he is not there (even) now,” the BJP leader remarked.
Though Mr. Gandhi was not in the House when these remarks were made, he responded to Mr. Thakur’s comments later during his speech.
BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj, who gave her maiden speech in the Lok Sabha, said that Opposition members were creating a constitutional crisis in Delhi as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was running the government from jail.
Ms. Swaraj, daughter of the late veteran BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, said: “The path-breaking initiatives helped the NDA win a majority for a third term. The Opposition, which imposed Emergency ... which murdered democracy, the same Opposition members are creating a constitutional crisis in Delhi because Arvind Kejriwal is adamant that he will not leave the chair and run the government from jail”.
JD(U)’s Rajiv Ranjan Singh accused the Opposition of attacking constitutional positions in the country.
From the Opposition benches, Congress’s Manish Tewari spoke on the new criminal laws which came into effect from July 1 and said that they would establish a police state in the country.
He said that these laws had been passed when 146 MPs had been suspended from the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha. “Thus, they do not reflect the collective wisdom of both the Houses”.
DMK leader A. Raja in his address questioned how the government, through the President’s address, claimed that it had won a majority with 240 seats.
“The address claims as if the government is enjoying majority for a third term. I do not know where the maths has been taught to them that 240 is majority and they are claiming through President”.
He said there was a difference between the Emergency in 1975 and the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Indira Gandhi had apologised for and regretted her decision while what this government was doing was “complete naked fascism”.
