By Sushil Kutty
Twenty opposition parties will boycott the new Parliament building unveiling. They don’t want the honourable Prime Minister act the ‘Inauguration Minister’, which is a boringly familiar sight ever since 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s appetite for cutting ribbons and laying foundation stones is inelegantly voracious. It does not upset the Prime Minister’s stomach, but it definitely gives a whole of Indians a case of the worst kind of unfettered Modi-rrhoea!
Congress Communications Chief Jairam Ramesh says if Emperor Ashoka was Great, and if Emperor Akbar was also Great, then Prime Minister Narendra Modi just happens to be ‘Modi the Inaugurat’. Well, it’s not funny. Seriously, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should stop doubling up as ‘Inauguration Minister’. It is an unhealthy fetish. Thursday, the Prime Minister flagged off the Delhi-Dehradun Vande Bharat. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav should have been given the honour. Three weeks ago, Modi was in Kochi flagging off Kerala’s Vande Bharat!
Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s gluttony for flagging off new trains and cutting ribbons at events makes people wonder at the hypocrisy behind the mentality. Don’t forget Modi’s pictures on COVID vaccine jabs certificates. Thank God, nobody suggested the same pics to grace COVID deaths certificates! You never know. Anything is possible, such are the times we live in.
A Prime Minister who betrays traces of what, megalomania? Narcissism? Why this insistence to be in the headlights everytime, everywhere? What is the kind of legacy that this Prime Minister wants to leave behind? Somehow, the pictures that come to mind are not beautiful. Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi hell bent on ‘sidelining’ President Droupadi Murmu? “Ladies First” isn’t that difficult to read and grasp. It registers to the simplest of minds. And Prime Ministers should be large hearted, not mean lean miser.
Doesn’t the BJP get it that what the party and government are upto is a “grave insult and direct assault on democracy’, which is the Opposition’s charge. The BJP should not let go this golden opportunity to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi a chance to lose his fetish to inaugurate.
Flagging off Vande Bharat is okay, but the New Parliament House is not okay. The old Parliament has stood where it stands for nearly a 100 years with a Brit’s name on it. Let India’s first Tribal woman President’s name live on for another 100 years, even 200 years, on the New Parliament House! Why this insistence on Modi-Modi-Modi? The Opposition is right. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has more of a right than Prime Minister Narendra Modi to open the New Parliament House. Besides, didn’t Modi “inaugurate” the four ferocious lions Ashoka Chakra?
And wasn’t it Prime Minister Narendra Modi who laid the foundation stone of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, wasn’t it Prime Minister Narendra Modi who declared open the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor? Also, the Ujjain Mahakaal Corridor? Where and on what all does this one man want his fingerprints on; honestly speaking, the government should fashion an inauguration policy; lay down clause by sub+ clause who can inaugurate/lay foundation stones, and how many times? Hell, if left as it is, old decrypt temples laid to waste by invaders and wanting a renovation will rebel. And there will be Mutiny on the Vande Bharat!
As it is, there are enough numbers of Gandhi/Nehru foundation stones to give eyes eyesore; nobody wants a diarrhoea of “Modi’ to carry forward the tradition/legacy, whatever. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be the generous man that he is, and set an example like nobody ever before him. At least that is what his multitude of detractors want. As it is, the opposition parties cannot get Modi out of their nightmares, despite the sweeping Karnataka victory. Mind you, the people are watching. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should help fight misogyny leading from the front. Pigheaded is not a nice word.
And Union Home Minister Amit Shah should take the Prime Minister aside and convince him, if need be in their mother-tongue Gujarati, that the New Parliament House without Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s name will still be the New Parliament House with President Droupadi Murmu’s name, just like the rose in another name will still smell the same. ‘Narendra Modi The Inaugurat’ does not sound great in the company of ‘Alexander The Great’, ‘Ashoka The Great’ and ‘Akbar The Great’. (IPA Service)
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