The Congress today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of lowering the dignity of his office by using objectionable language in Parliament saying this is "unbecoming" of a person holding the post.
Senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma condemned the language he used against the Congress party and its leaders yesterday while accusing him of "distorting and insulting" history.
"I unequivocally on behalf of my party condemn the language, the false accusations, the defamatory words, distortion and insult of history that the prime minister did in Parliament yesterday," he said.
"The prime minister lacks both grace and magnanimity. He has lowered the dignity of his own office by using the kind of fiction, language, phrases and defaming, disrespecting, his predecessors, the prime ministers, in particular three prime ministers belonging to the Congress Party," Sharma said.
He said the All India Congress Committee session in 1935 at Lucknow adopted a resolution that independent India will be a 'parliamentary democracy' and it was Jawaharlal Nehru who moved the resolution and for the first time used the word 'republic' along with 'democracy'.
Sharma said the prime minister cannot be blamed, as it is his "ignorance of the freedom struggle" and his "disrespect" come as his elders in the party and the ideology to which he belongs did not participate in India's freedom struggle.
"We did not expect any endorsement or respectful acknowledgement from the prime minister," he said, adding that as prime minister of the republic of India, Modi should have been careful and correct about his language, his words and his statement.
"It is a sad day for Indian democracy," he said.
Comparing Nehru's contribution to the nation, he said, "This is the difference between a great leader and a leader whose actions, whose statements are unbecoming that of a prime minister of the republic of India."
Going by Modi's remarks in Parliament yesterday, Sharma said, "It is very clear that the prime minister, his party president and the government are rattled."
He alleged that the government is "clueless" on how to come out of a "crisis of their own creation" when the economy is in "shambles and "jobs are lost" and not being created.
Sharma alleged that this shows that this government, the prime minister and the BJP want to spend their energies and time not on working for the country or in fulfilling their "hollow and false" promises, but are in direct confrontation with the Congress party and its leadership.
"They have dual standards, they have mastered the art of double speak," he said.
The Congress leader alleged that while there is one law for the prime minister, his ministers, his chief ministers and there is another set of rules and law for the Congress leaders, for the Opposition chief ministers, for the former chief ministers of the Congress party.
"They have not taken any action against their own. They are abusing the power and authority of office and national agencies, the CBI and the ED to further malicious agenda of targeted vendetta against the political opponents," he said.
He also made it clear that the Congress, a 133-year-old party, "cannot be bullied, cannot be intimidated, cannot be cowed down by their actions".
"We have the resilience, we have the conviction, we have the strength to stand up and fight back which we are demonstrating," he said.
Sharma further alleged that BJP leaders disrupted P Chidambaram's speech on the budget in the Rajya Sabha as Congress members had raised slogans when Modi was speaking in the Lok Sabha yesterday.
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