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Shashi Tharoor's ‘bizarre enough’ tweet amid new Parliament building row
Shashi Tharoor hit out at the Centre for allegedly not inviting President Droupadi Murmu for the inauguration of the new Parliament building on May 28.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday hit out at the Centre for allegedly not inviting President Droupadi Murmu for the inauguration of the new Parliament building on May 28. Tharoor's tweet comes after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge targeted the Centre over the same issue and accused the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government of electing the President of India from the Dalit and the tribal communities for electoral reasons.
Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building on May 28 following an invitation by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
“Yes @kharge Sahib is right. Articles 60 and 111 of the Constitution of India make it clear that the President is the head of parliament. It was bizarre enough that the PM performed the ground-breaking ceremony & puja when construction began, but totally incomprehensible (& arguably unconstitutional) for him and not the President to inaugurate the building,” Tharoor tweeted.
Kharge said the then president Ram Nath Kovind was not invited for the new Parliament's foundation laying ceremony in December 2020.
"The Modi Government has repeatedly disrespected propriety. The Office of the President of India is reduced to tokenism under the BJP-RSS Government," the Congress president alleged in a series of tweets.
Noting that Parliament is the supreme legislative body while the President is the highest Constitutional authority, he said she alone represents the government, the Opposition, and every citizen alike.
"She is the First Citizen of India. Inauguration of the new Parliament building by her will symbolise the government's commitment to democratic values and Constitutional propriety," Kharge tweeted.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders have said the president should inaugurate the new Parliament House and not the prime minister.
Congress' senior spokesperson Anand Sharma told a press conference on Monday the government and the prime minister should urge the President in this regard and she as head of the institution of Parliament be accorded that honour.
"The Congress has expressed its concern as the principal opposition party and we feel strongly that the constitutional propriety should be maintained and the honourable president who is the head of the Parliament should be requested by the government to inaugurate.
"The honourable prime minister has every right to be there and we are only pointing out what is constitutionally correct," Sharma told reporters.
It is not proper constitutionally to keep the President of India out of such a big decision, he also said.
