New Delhi, Feb 7: Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday criticised the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha, saying “whoever has written it has done injustice to the President”. Sharma was speaking on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in the Upper House.
“As we say in English, it was just a laundry list of government announcement and programmes. This has been done before. I was thinking who has written it. The President doesn’t write. Whoever has written it is answerable, injustice was done to the President,” he said.
Raising question marks on a number of policy decisions of the government, Sharma questioned the idea of ‘merging flames’ saying flames are never merged. “Amar Jawan Jyoti was a tribute to the soldiers who made ultimate sacrifices in Bangladesh. It was said that India Gate was a colonial legacy. The British Indian Army was not a mercenary Army,” he said.
Sharma said the intolerance in the country was denting India’s image globally. He demanded the Prime Minister to assure the country that attacks on minorities would not be allowed. “I would urge when the Prime Minister comes to the House, he should assure us that we are such a large country, no such thing will be allowed in India. The world’s largest religions are here in India. We don’t want such an image of India to be built all over the world. This is very dangerous,” he said.
Accusing the government of dismissing the work done by previous governments, Anand Sharma said that nobody can question the contribution of Congress leaders. “Nehru remained in jail for 14 years.. Indira and Rajeev were martyred. How can anyone question the contribution of our leaders. We also acknowledge the works of Atalji,” he said. The senior Congress leader alleged that there was no mention of national security in the President’s address. “Forces are deployed at China border, shouldn’t this issue be discussed in Parliament,” he said, adding former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru discussed the situation in the middle of a war. The Rajya Sabha on Monday completed the discussion on Motion of Thanks to the President’s address with participation of 39 members.
