19 Opposition parties, including the Congress, the TMC, the AAP and others on Wednesday (May 24) decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (May 28).
Issuing a joint statement explaining reasons for the boycott, Opposition parties said, “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..”
“Undemocratic acts are not new to the Prime Minister, who has relentlessly hollowed out the Parliament. Opposition Members of Parliament have been disqualified, suspended and muted when they raised the issues of the people of India… When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building,” they added.
The Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Left, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal-United (JDU), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction and others said on Wednesday that they will not be part of the event.
Others who have called for the boycott of the event include Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Samajwadi Party (SP), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Kerala Congress (Mani), Rashtriya Lok Dal, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), National Conference (NC), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Some of them have also criticised scheduling the event on the birth anniversary of VD Savarkar, the Hindutva ideologue who shared views radically divergent from Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, and had pledged lifelong fealty to the British after prolonged incarceration.
