President Droupadi Murmu, after the formation of 18th Lok Sabha has first time addressed the Parliament. And her addressal speech turned out to be quite offensive to the ruling opposition party Congress. As, she highlighted the Emergency of 1975 and tagged the time period as the darkest chapter in the Indian constitution.
As soon as president’s remarks dropped, a heated row escalated between ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress. President’s remarks seemed to coincide with BJP leaders speeches which also stressed upon the horrors of the emergency.
The reason why the opposition is upset with Murmu’s statement because at a time when the opposition and congress leaders are holding placards of ‘Constitution’ and staging protests outside the parliament to accusing BJP for undermining the constitution, President’s remarks plays completely out of context for the opposition.
Her speech rather looked more favourable to BJP than the Opposition. She said, “My Government also does not consider the Constitution of India as just a medium of governance; rather we are making efforts to ensure that our Constitution becomes a part of public consciousness,”.
But then this is also to be noted that the President’s addressa; speech is prepared by the govt. and it is broadly a documentation of what the govt. has done in its previous tenure. The addressal is then followed by the Motion of thanks.
She said that the government is aiming to make India ‘third largest economy’, she aded, “The government is giving equal priority to all three arms: manufacturing, services and agriculture. India is becoming Atmanirbhar in every field at a rapid pace.”
Opposition’s stark reaction
Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav said President’s addressal to the joint session of both houses of parliament and said that it is a tradition and the speech in reality represents the government’s views.
Speaking on the same, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari also lashed out and called the BJP a tired, defeated and criplled government that lacks willpower.