UDAIPUR (RAJASTHAN): Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi on Friday slammed the Narendra Modi government at the Centre saying that it was brutalising minorities and glorifying Mahatma Gandhiโs killers.
In her opening remarks at the partyโs three-day Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir Sonia Gandhi said, โIt gives us an opportunity to discuss the numerous challenges that the country is facing as the result of the BJP policies and of the RSS and its affiliates.โ
Asserting that the Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir organised at Udaipur is an occasion to deliberate many tasks, she said, โIt is both Chintan about national issues and the meaningful Atma Chintan of our party organisation.โ
Slamming the government, Sonia Gandhi said, โFriends, by now it has become abundantly clear what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and his colleagues really mean by their frequently repeated slogan โmaximum governance, minimum governmentโ.โ
โIt means keeping the country in a state of permanent polarisation compelling people to live in a constant state of fear and insecurity. It means viciously targeting, victimising and often brutalising minorities who are an integral part of our society and our equal citizens of our republic. It means using our societiesโ age-old plurality to divide us and subverting the carefully nurtured idea of unity in diversity,โ she said.
Attacking the central government for its reinvention of history, Sonia Gandhi said, โThere is a constant denigration of our leaders especially (Indiaโs first Prime Minister) Jawaharlal Nehru and the systematic move to distort, deny and destroy their contribution, their achievements and their sacrifices.โ
โIt also means glorifying the killers of Mahatma Gandhi and their ideologies,โ she said, adding that there is a blatant undermining of the principles and provisions of our nationโs Constitution, of its pillars of justice, liberty, and equality, fraternity and secularism.
Targeting the government for misusing the investigative agencies against the political opponents, the Congress leader said, โIt (โmaximum governance, minimum governmentโ) means threatening and intimidating political opponents, maligning their reputation, jailing them on a flimsy pretext and misusing investigative agencies against them. It means eroding the independence and professionalism of all institutions of democracy.โ
She further stated that the government is turning a blind eye to continued atrocities across the country on the weaker sections, especially on Dalits, Adivasis and women.
โIt means using fear to make the bureaucracy, corporate India and civil society and sections of the media fall in line. It means more empty slogans, diversionary tactics and utter silence on the part of the ever so eloquent Prime Minister when the healing touch is most needed,โ she said.
She also said that it is not just the undermining of our long-cherished values embodied in the Constitution that are now at โgrave riskโ. The fire of hatred and distrust is ignited and it has taken a heavy toll on the peopleโs lives and this is having serious social consequences. Much more serious we can imagine, she said.
She asserted that the vast majority of the country wants to live in an atmosphere of peace, amity and harmony. โThe BJP cohorts want to keep people in the state of perpetual frenzy and conflict,โ she added.
