Divisive policies may help a party win elections, but nation will stand defeated: Azad

Mr. Azad said big fraudsters like Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled to London. “Smaller crooks joined the ruling party.”

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Monday that they didn’t want a ‘New India’ where humans were afraid of humans, but an Old India devoid of hate, anger, lynching and mob violence.

Speaking on the motion of thanks to the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha, he said the Prime Minister should consider dismissing the parliamentarian who glorified the killer of Mahatma Gandhi before October 2, his birth anniversary. Prime Minister Narendra Modi listened with rapt attention to Mr. Azad’s forty-minutes speech.

“My tongue will burn… I cannot repeat the remarks… I have a complaint to the Prime Minister. Why didn’t you take action? Mahatma Gandhi may have been Congress president, but he was the Father of the Nation… Though it doesn’t make any difference to us, this is a blot on the face of the ruling party that cannot be wiped out,” Mr. Azad said without naming Pragya Singh Thakur, the 2008 Malegaon blast accused who was elected from Bhopal.

Mr. Azad said big fraudsters like Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled to London. “Smaller crooks joined the ruling party.”

Launching a scathing attack on the government and its policies, Mr. Azad said a party could win elections on divisive policies, but the “nation stood defeated.”

He said rapes were at an all-time high, including heinous crimes against minors. “Beti Padhao and Beti Bachao” were just slogans. Crimes against women had risen manifold. He urged the government to ensure 50 per cent reservation to women in Parliament where it had absolute majority.

Earlier, working president of the BJP Jagat Prakash Nadda said the Opposition should introspect if they were on the right path. “We should agree to disagree, but the disagreement shouldn’t be to destruct the proceedings of Parliament.” Responding to this, Mr. Azad sad, “even if we have to stay in the Opposition for a thousand years, we wont follow your path.”

Ranjan Daimary of the Bodoland People Front, an ally of the BJP, delivered his speech in the Bodo language, which he said 2,000 years old and one not many would have heard in Parliament. He questioned the role of interlocutors appointed by the Centre to hold talks with various insurgent groups in the Northeast. “Final settlement with NSCN [Naga peace deal] is still not there. Interlocutors occupy office, stay in five star hotels, but have failed to solve any insurgency- related issue in all these years.”

Manoj Jha of the RJD said “Mandate is not a license to decimate constitutional propriety and core governance issues. Mandate is to take everybody along.”

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