Congress President and the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday took a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that the last 10 years of his rule were just a trailer and ‘picture abhi baaki hai’.
Speaking on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address, Kharge said the third term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has seen exam paper leaks, terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, train accidents, airport canopy collapse, bridge cave-ins and toll tax hikes.
"The president’s statement should have included a vision and advice on dealing with challenges. There was no mention of how to tackle challenges, it should have been there, any content related to that is missing,” Kharge said.
The House immediately burst into laughter after the Congress president thanked the vice president, Jagdeep Dhankar. Kharge further mentioned how the President is the most important part of Parliament, and the members abide by it.
Kharge, however, noted that President Droupadi Murmu’s address did not mention anything about Dalits, minority sections and the backward classes. “Like the last time, it was just about full of words of appreciation for the govt," the Congress president said.
The president gave her first address in January and the second one in June. While the one in January mentioned elections, the second was a copy of it, said Mallikarjun Kharge. He further took a dig at the Narendra Modi-led government by stating that the BJP-RSS have hijacked the education system in India, leaving no room for people with “ achche vichaar! (good thoughts)”
By the rules of the House, any topic that does not concern the government is not to be discussed. As a result, a heated argument followed between JP Nadda, the leader of the house, Dhankar, and Kharge.
“Everyone knows, RSS propped Godse to kill Mahatma Gandhi,” further said Kharge, till vice president Jagdeep Dhankar intervened to tell that these parts would go off the record.
“You are bashing an organisation which is working for the nation! Nothing on record,” Dhankar told Mallikarjun Kharge.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh lauded Kharge for giving a “devastating speech" in Parliament today.
“A devastating speech by Mallikarjun Khargeji that exposed the non-biological PM and the self-styled non-political RSS,” Ramesh said.
