People, country deeply troubled in Modi regime: Sonia Gandhi
NEW DELHI : Returning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fire, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday accused his government of creating an atmosphere of fear, damaging democratic traditions and eroding pluralistic nature of the society, and said the people and the country were “deeply troubled”.
Addressing a meeting of Congress Parliamentary Party here, she accused the Modi government of allowing polarisation of society for political gains and said there would be similar attempts in Karnataka, which goes to polls later in 2018.
Gandhi’s attack on Modi and his government came a day after the Prime Minister launched a blistering attack on the Congress in both the Houses of Parliament during the debate on the Montion of Thanks to the President’s address.
She said the “arrogance and dishonesty” tells everyone that the Modi government “lives by its own propaganda and lies”.
“We need no further evidence of this than the Prime Minister’s speech in the Lok Sabha yesterday morning.”
Terming it as “maximum marketing, minimum delivery” government, she said the ruling alliance was out of touch with reality and was recycling UPA schemes.
Gandhi made several sharp attacks at the NDA government, saying the union budget was full of “sleights of hand – of jumlas” and asked why it was not giving price details of the Rafale fighter deal.
Referring to the death of Justice B.H. Loya, she accused the government of refusing “to respond to wholly justified demands to satisfactorily investigate certain sensitive legal cases of far reaching political consequence”.
Gandhi said the nearly four years of Modi government has been a period in which institutions that are at the foundation of the country’s democracy “have come under systematic assault — Parliament itself, the judiciary, the media and civil society”.
“Investigative agencies have been let loose against political opponents. An all-pervasive atmosphere of fear and intimidation has been created. Liberal, secular and democratic traditions are being wantonly damaged. The pluralistic nature of our society — which has been its strength for centuries — is being eroded,” she said.
She said minorities were feeling unsafe and being subjected to barbarous attacks and Dalits and women have come under renewed and widespread atrocities.
“In many cases this violence, specially against the minorities and Dalits, is not sporadic or random but orchestrated to polarise our society for narrow political gains.(Agencies)
