President Murmu’s right to inaugurate new Parliament building: Cong MP Imran Pratapgarhi

PTI, May 27, 2023, 3:02 PM IST

It is the right of President Droupadi Murmu to inaugurate the new Parliament building as she holds the highest post in the country, rather than Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking credit for everything, Congress MP Imran Pratapgarhi said on Saturday.

He also said there was no need for the new Parliament building and the government should have renovated the old complex.

”The Congress, Rahul Gandhi have continuously been asking why is not the President inaugurating the new Parliament building? In a democratic set-up, the president is considered the highest post and has an important status,” Pratapgarhi told PTI video here.

”She is a woman, an Adivasi, why isn’t she inaugurating it? Why is the prime minister continuously trying to take the credit? It is the President’s right to inaugurate the new Parliament building,” he added.

He said the Congress has always worked for restoration of things rather than adopting new things by setting aside old ones, stressing that there was no need for the new Parliament building.

”I am a member of the Parliament. I have so many memories of it (old Parliament building). I took an oath there. It is a beautiful complex. I think there was a need to renovate or redecorate it rather than building a new one,” the Congress MP said. Earlier, addressing a press conference at the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) office here as part of the party’s nationwide programme, Pratapgarhi said the the Congress was not against the new building. Why has the President not been invited? We are against this stand of the prime minister who believes everything revolves around him, he said. Asked about National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah’s remarks that the new building was a welcome addition and looks ”pretty damn impressive”, the Congress MP said it could be Abdullah’s ”personal statement”, but his party’s stand is different.

The National Conference was a signatory of the joint letter on Wednesday in which 19 opposition parties announced their decision to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building by the prime minister.

To a question about the government’s claim that the recently concluded G20 meeting in Kashmir was successful despite the boycott by China, Pratapgarhi said the government only does event management. ”There is difference in the statements of the prime minister, the defence minister and the external affairs minister on the issue of China…They are lying to the people on the issue,” he said.

He said the government tried to show that everything was normal in J-K by holding the G20 meeting.

If there is so much normalcy, then tell us when will the assembly elections be conducted here, he added.

On the occasion, Pratapgarhi, along with JKPCC president Viqar Rasool, released a booklet — ‘9 Saal, 9 Sawaal’ — on the completion of nine years of the Modi government. ”We want to ask basic questions to the government which is drum beating its achievements,” he said. ”This government only benefits Modi’s friends. It does nothing for the common man,” Pratapgarhi said.