Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday listed three major events to allege that the President was ignored by the Narendra Modi government. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo claimed that then-President Ram Nath Kovind was neither invited to lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple in Ayodhya nor that of the new Parliament building.
“Now they are not even getting the current President Mrs Droupadi Murmu to inaugurate the new Parliament House,” the chief minister wrote on Twitter.
“SC and ST society across the country is asking whether they are considered inauspicious that they don’t get the invitation?” he claimed in a tweet in Hindi.
AAP is among the 19 opposition parties that issued a joint statement announcing the boycott of the new Parliament building’s inauguration, calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move to preside over it by “sidelining” President Droupadi Murmu “not only a grave insult” but a “direct assault on our democracy.” The statement said the inauguration on May 28 is a momentous occasion and they were open to sinking their differences and marking this occasion.
“However, Prime Minister Modi’s decision to inaugurate the new Parliament building by himself, completely sidelining President Murmu, is not only a grave insult but a direct assault on our democracy which demands a commensurate response,” the statement said.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) hit back at the opposition parties calling the boycott of the new Parliament building’s inauguration “contempt for the very essence of democracy” while imploring them to revisit the decision.
“140 crore people of India will not forget this egregious insult to our democracy and to their elected representatives,” NDA leaders said in a statement on Wednesday.
They said the decision to boycott the ceremony “is not merely disrespectful; it is a blatant affront to the democratic ethos and constitutional values of our great nation.”
