 "Narendra Modi")
The Prime Minister today replied to the motion of thanks to the President’s address in the Lok Sabha. In his speech, the PM seemed to be in his element. His mastery over public speaking is well acknowledged and this speech in Lok Sabha was another demonstration of the idiomatic flourish and wit that his oratory is famous for.
As the seasoned electoral campaigner that he is, PM Modi took potshots at what the opposition parties had been wrong about. He quoted former Prime Ministers like Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi as he tried to convey different messages to the opposition leaders.
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While the PM reminded the house in general and the opposition in particular about the challenges that India faces, he laid the blame for how insurmountable challenges like poverty were, at the doorstep of the previous governments; of which the Congress governments would form the largest part. The speech showed why he has been the best articulator of public resentment since he became the BJP candidate for Prime Ministership in the run up to the May 2014 elections. It was such a good speech that it made us forget that this was a speech by a Prime Minister about to complete two years of his tenure. It was an exceptional speech not only because of what he talked about but also because of what he did not talk about. So what did he not talk about?
Black money
The PM could have replied to the jibe of his government having launched a ‘Fair & Lovely Scheme’ for black money but he was in a magnanimous mood and did not destroy this ill-informed attack on his government by Rahul Gandhi. He stayed silent on the actions that his government had taken to bring back lakhs of crores of black money - that belonged to us Indians - from foreign shores; thereby ensuring Rs 15 lakhs for each one of us. There must be some action that his government must have taken on this but he chose not to blow his own trumpet.
JNU and sedition
The PM did not mention the case related to anti-national and seditious slogan shouting at JNU too; evidence of which was given by the parody Hafiz Saeed tweet as quoted by the Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, and Delhi Police. Perhaps he did not mention it because the real slogan shouters (some Kashmiri students) have not been arrested yet. And how does it matter when Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid have already been made scapegoat for slogan shouting by someone else? Once again the PM chose to stay quiet about it, letting the brilliant officers of Delhi Police and BJP spokespersons like Sambit Patra deal with such minor matters in TV studios instead.
Rohith Vemula
The PM showed his compassionate side by not talking about Rohith Vemula’s suicide either. In any case, it would have been near impossible to better the brilliant, theatrical performance by HRD minister, Smriti Irani in her speech in the house in this session. There was no need to reopen an old wound even though Rohith’s mother had accused the HRD minister of lying. He had already spoken about ‘Mother India losing a son’ in a convocation ceremony in Lucknow in the past. Mother India shouldn’t lose her children afterall.
Pakistan and Pathankot
‘Chai pe charcha’ with Pakistan was what Rahul Gandhi had accused the Prime Minister of. Wisely, he did not respond to that. How does it matter that we don’t have a concrete Pakistan policy when we are able to teach them lessons by not talking to them after terrorist attacks on our air-force base? Did it not force Pakistan to talk about taking action against perpetrators of the Pathankot terror attack? Did it not force Pakistan to arrest Masood Azhar or keep him in protective custody or send him away as a missing person? It would have been unwise to reveal in the Parliament our secret policy with regard to Pakistan this week.
Haryana
Haryana was burning till a few days back and the Prime Minister was accused of ignoring it but it was clearly incorrect since the government sources informed knowledgeable people that the PM was keeping a close watch on the Haryana situation through the Haryana government led by ML Khattar, which was in turn trying to keep a close watch on any routes using which it could enter parts of Haryana cut off completely by the Jat agitation. In any case large parts of Haryana were cut off for only a few days and the administration was able to get back there later. There was no need for the PM to speak about it in the Parliament now.
EPF
The loud criticism of tax on EPF withdrawal notwithstanding, the government has already responded in the best way possible: by confusing everyone. Those in favour of taxing entire EPF corpus can feel happy listening to one representative of the finance ministry and those in favour of taxing interest only can feel happy listening to another representative of the finance ministry. In such a situation, it would have been premature of the PM to say anything on the subject and he maintained a wise silence.
The Prime Minister was the clear winner of this sparring with the opposition in the Parliament. Not only did he manage to blame the previous governments for all that is wrong in the country but also because he managed to blame them for his own government’s working.
Twitter: @bhayankur
