Post washout, battle spills onto streets

There were no signs of the battle between the government and the principal Opposition Congress ebbing despite the conclusion of the Monsoon session on Thursday. Rattled by the frontal attack on the Congress party’s first family in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the Congress in a <g data-gr-id="29">retort</g> to the BJP demanded an apology from External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for dragging in the name of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

On the other hand, while addressing members of Parliament of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Congress party wants to save the family, while the BJP wants to save the country as it is our principle.” 

In an equally venomous attack on Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said, “There are other people (referring to <g data-gr-id="30">Gandhis</g>) who, for generations in politics, have not worked for a living. They have learnt the art of living comfortably without working.”

After the meeting, the NDA MPs took out a ‘Save Democracy March’ from Vijay Chowk to Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Parliament complex. 

The spillover of the tussle between the two parties in the coming days is expected to spread beyond  Raisina Hills. The Prime Minister had asked NDA MPs and ministers to hold protests across the country, especially targeting constituencies represented by Congress and Left MPs, during a month-long campaign.

“We accept this undemocratic challenge by the Congress and will take it to the people. Our people will go to every nook and corner to expose the Congress, which is trying to stop the growth of the country,” said Modi, equating Congress’s disruption of Parliament with Emergency. Briefing media persons after the meeting, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the Prime Minister recalled his days as a political worker during the JP Movement when Emergency was imposed in an attempt to concentrate power with one family, and claimed the current situation was akin to that.

The NDA Parliamentary Party also passed a resolution against the “deliberate and forcible” disruption of the Monsoon session by the Congress and called upon the people to see through “patently undemocratic” behaviour of the Congress.

On the other hand, the Congress once again fielded Rahul Gandhi in the morning to take the attack 

on BJP camp. After walking out from Parliament, the Congress leader challenged Modi to bring back former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi to face the law of the land. “After we lost the election, I thought (PM Modi) had it in him, but now we know, he doesn’t have <g data-gr-id="37">dum</g> (guts),” said Gandhi, whose party accused the ruling BJP’s top leaders of illicit business links to the billionaire cricket administrator. The Congress MPs once again protested in Parliament complex.