Tharoor, Baghel counter Puri on Parliament launch row, BJP says ‘belittling…’ | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Tharoor, Baghel counter Puri on Parliament launch row, BJP says ‘belittling their own’

May 24, 2023 02:58 PM IST

The opposition parties contend that President Droupadi Murmu should do the honours as she is an integral part of Parliament.

The controversy over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has triggered a war of words between the ruling BJP and the opposition parties, with Congress leader Shashi Tharoor dismissing Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri's argument of supposed precedence. On Tuesday, Puri said the then prime minister Indira Gandhi had inaugurated the Parliament Annexe building in 1975 and successor Rajiv Gandhi had laid the foundation of the parliament library on August 15, 1987.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.(PTI / File photo)
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.(PTI / File photo)

"If your head of government can inaugurate Parliament annexe and library then why can't the head of the government of this time do? It's as simple as that," he said.

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Tharoor countered the argument saying those were subsidiary buildings while Prime Minister Modi will be inaugurating a “whole new Parliament” convened and prorogued by the President of India.

“But those were subsidiary buildings, dear @HardeepSPuri - an Annexe and a Library. This is a whole new Parliament! Doesn’t the Constitution say the President is its head, convenes Parliament & prorogues it? So shouldn’t she inaugurate it rather than the PM?” the Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram said in a tweet.

Insisting that the new Parliament building be inaugurated by the President, Chattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel said inaugurating a portion of a building is a different matter.

"The Parliament was built during the British era. Rashtrapati Bhavan was also built during the British period, so how could Indira Gandhi have inaugurated it? If someone inaugurates a portion of a building, then that is a different matter. The new Parliament building should be inaugurated by the President," the chief minister said while responding to Puri's argument.

As many as 19 opposition parties, including the Congress, Left and TMC, have decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building, saying they find no value in a new building when the soul of democracy has been sucked out.

In a joint statement released on Wednesday, they said, "Despite our belief that the government is threatening democracy, and our disapproval of the autocratic manner in which the new Parliament was built, we were open to sinking our differences and marking this occasion".

However, Prime Minister Modi's decision to inaugurate the new Parliament building by himself, "completely sidelining President Droupadi Murmu, is not only a grave insult but a direct assault on our democracy which demands a commensurate response".

Amid the political slugfest, BJP IT cell Amit Malviya tweeted, “Well, the Congress is free to belittle their leaders’ accomplishments but whose fault is it if Congress leaders were constrained by their vision and content building incremental infrastructure or worse lending their name to even the smallest installations in the precinct of the Parliament?”

“The Opposition must stop complaining because none other than Jawaharlal Nehru has unveiled even portraits in the Lok Sabha chamber and the Parliament hall, things which could have otherwise been done, either by the President or the Lok Sabha speaker.”

Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building on May 28 following an invitation by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Kunal Gaurav is a multimedia journalist with Hindustan Times, New Delhi. He handles daily editorial operations for the digital news desk, including news tracking, news prioritisation, writing and editing.

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