NEW DELHI: Hitting back at PM Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said a “desperate and frustrated PM, with nothing meaningful to show for the last 12 years, turned an official address to the nation into a political speech full of mudslinging and outright lies”. “The model code of conduct is in place and it was very clear how PM Modi misused official machinery to attack his opponents. This is a travesty of democracy and the Constitution of India,” Kharge said in a post on X. Congress termed Modi’s speech “a distress address rather than a national address”, claiming he was “unhinged” after the defeat of the bill. ICC spokesman Jairam Ramesh said Modi should have apologised for “his shameless, deceitful attempts to push through a devious delimitation proposal in the name of women. His ‘niyat’ (intent) is anything but saaf (clean). It is poisonous”. Ramesh said PM Narendra Modi should answer why the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam passed in Sept 2023 was notified late on the night April 16, after a delay of 30 months.“His talking of mahila samman is sheer hypocrisy given the way he has conducted himself throughout his life. What the PM attempted in the Lok Sabha yesterday — a weakening of our democracy and our federalism — was exactly the sort of attack on the Constitution that was anticipated when the PM called for ‘400 paar’ in the run-up to the 2024 LS elections,” Ramesh said. The Congress spokesman said the Prime Minister’s “attempts to invoke the legacy of the Constitutionmakers only induce a revulsion at his dishonesty”. He also rubbished the PM Modi’s claims that Congress had opposed the Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile and GST, arguing that both policies are “entirely Congress creations”. “The PM ended his speech by saying there was a ‘waqt ka intezaar’ for women’s reservation. There is no need for a ‘muhurat’ to give India’s women their due. Congress challenges the PM to move a bill in the Parliament tomorrow to implement women’s reservation within the existing set-up of the Lok Sabha,” Ramesh said.
