Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari on Tuesday said that the Union ministers should read the Constitution of India “very carefully”. His comment came after Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri slammed the Congress for “raking controversies where none exist”.
Citing Article 79 of the Constitution, Manish Tewari said, “There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the council of States and the House of the People. Ministers of the Union must read the Constitution of India very carefully.”
Puri had earlier tweeted, “Congress has a habit of raking controversies where none exist. While President is the Head of State, PM is the Head of Govt and leads the Parliament on behalf of the Govt, whose Policies are effected in form of Laws. The President is not a Member of either House, whereas PM is.”
Days ahead of the opening of the new parliament building, a controversy erupted as the Congress accused the government of disrespecting Constitutional propriety and demanded that President Droupadi Murmu should do the inauguration instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BJP hit back, saying the Congress was in the habit of indulging in “cheap politics” of running down the country’s achievements for its selfish ends.
In a series of tweets, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that the then president Ram Nath Kovind was not invited to the new Parliament’s foundation laying ceremony in December 2020 and claimed that President Murmu is not being invited for the inauguration of the new Parliament building.
“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.
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.
Earlier, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and several opposition leaders had said that the president should inaugurate the new Parliament House and not the prime minister.
Sources claimed that Murmu was approached for inaugurating the building but she wanted the prime minister to do it.
“Whenever a good thing happens, Congress leaders resort to cheap politics which has become its hallmark under Rahul Gandhi. When the nation is feeling proud on the construction of the new Parliament building, its leaders have again stooped to a new low,” BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni said.
Citing records, BJP sources said the Parliament House Annexe was inaugurated by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 24, 1975.
BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi slammed the opposition parties, saying they do not refrain from “playing negative politics” even in this “glorious moment”.
“The Opposition is indulging in cheap politics at a time when they should be together because Parliament is a symbol of Indian democracy. It is not related to any political party,” he said.
The Congress and other parties have been critical of the project to build the new Parliament building undertaken by the Modi government.
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