BJP trying to change history through new Parliament building: JD(U)

Accusing the BJP-led Union government of undermining the spirit of democracy, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan on Sunday alleged that the saffron party was trying to change history through the new Parliament building.

JD(U) workers observed a day-long fast here on Sunday to protest the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing party workers here, Singh said, "The BJP has left no stone unturned to undermine the Constitution of India. In fact, BJP leaders have no respect for our Constitution, drafted by Babasaheb B R Ambedkar. They (BJP) subvert it."

Also Read: All you need to know about the new Parliament

"The BJP-led central government is flouting democratic norms and undermining the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The party is trying to change the country's history through the new Parliament building," he said.

Singh said there was no need to construct a new Parliament building.

"Even if it was made, the President of India had the right to inaugurate it. Every year, the President addresses Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on the first day of the Parliament session. The PM's ego for self-promotion denied the first tribal woman President of the country of constitutional privilege to inaugurate the new Parliament building," he added.

The JD(U) president alleged that the Union government was misusing constitutional bodies, "as it recently happened in Delhi".

"The Centre brought an ordinance to negate the Supreme Court's judgment which placed services in the national capital under the Delhi government. The BJP has no moral right to talk about Constitution or parliamentary democracy," he said.

Singh said that when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spoke against Modi, he was disqualified from the Lok Sabha. He predicted that after losing Karnataka, the BJP will also lose the upcoming assembly polls in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

"If the BJP wins the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which will not happen anyway, people who spoke against their party leaders will be put behind the bars," the JD(U) president said.

Mahagathbandhan alliance partner Congress took out a protest march in Patna against the inauguration of the new Parliament building by the PM.

Congress leaders, including MLAs and MLCs, led by state unit president Akhilesh Prasad Singh, took out the march from Boring Road crossing to Ambedkar statue near Patna High Court.

Earlier in the day, the RJD, the largest constituent of the ruling Mahagathbandhan, likened the architecture of the new Parliament building to a coffin, drawing sharp criticism from the BJP which said people will bury the Bihar party in such a coffin in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

As the new building was inaugurated by the PM, the ruling party in Bihar put out a tweet that showed a coffin and the new legislature building side by side and asked, "What is this?"

Referring to the RJD's tweet, senior BJP leader and former president of the Bihar unit of the saffron party, Sanjay Jaiswal, in a video statement, said, "This act of RJD is highly condemnable. This has exposed their mindset that it does have any regard for the Parliament, the supreme law-making institution in the country... it shows that they don't believe in parliamentary democracy."

Echoing a similar view, Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said, "The politics of the Grand Alliance of the Congress, RJD and the JD(U) will be buried in the same coffin."