New Delhi: In a speech that came across as a political retort to the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra rather than a reply to the Motion of Thanks debate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outrightly dismissed the opposition’s allegations of cronyism against his government as “lies” and “false accusations”, while completely skirting the boiling issue of his government’s alleged complicity in the Adani group’s disproportionate rise since 2014. For around an hour and a half in which Modi spoke in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, February 8, he stayed away from the demand of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) or a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the financial dealings of the Adani Group that have been in the spotlight in discussions of both the Houses. He chose not to even mention the name of the group or the allegations of fraud that it faces.Rather, Modi dismissed the attacks on his government policies in the parliament with one broad brushstroke, paving the way for his speech to set an electoral narrative against a seemingly resurgent Congress. “I welcome constructive criticism…but over the last few days when I heard a few members of the parliament speaking, I believe that criticism has been replaced by compulsive critics,” he said. “These people have wasted nine years in making wild allegations instead of advancing constructive criticism,” he claimed. “If you lose elections, then EVMs are faulty or abuse the Election Commission; if corruption is being probed, then abuse investigative agencies; and if the Army shows its valour, then doubt army’s integrity; if the country is prospering, then abuse the Reserve Bank of India and other institutions,” he alleged. Conventionally, prime ministers outline the policies and programmes of the Union government after the end of the fiscal year and the beginning of a new one in the reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address and strengthen the President’s proclamations. However, Modi took the opportunity to pitch his government over the last nine years with the preceding 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments to lampoon the Congress-led regime as an era of “corruption”, “scams”, and neglect of marginalised communities, while repeatedly taking digs at opposition leaders with constant smirks and sneer, shrugging them off as “pessimists”. Right from the beginning of his speech, the prime minister made his tone and tenor clear. Quite early into his speech, while alleging that the opposition ecosystem was jubilant after some members spoke in the parliament on Tuesday, he lapsed into a verse. “Yeh keh keh ke hum dil ko behla rahe hai, woh ab chal chuke hai, woh ab aa rahe hai (We regale in our hearts by saying: He has already walked, he will now arrive),” Modi said in what was an unmissable snipe at Rahul Gandhi’s four-month-long foot march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Later, he also referred to a Harvard University study in making his case against Congress strong. “Many people here have a craze for ‘studies’ from Harvard University. The university also did a study called ‘The rise and decline of India’s Congress party’. I believe every big university will study the downfall of the Congress and even those responsible for it,” he said.He went on to claim that Gandhi could recently hoist the national flag in Kashmir only because his government has contained terrorism in the Valley, while the Congress era was infamous for violence from the north to the south.Modi claimed that the opposition leaders were envious of the economic growth during his government’s tenure and that the world was looking towards India as a proud and positive nation that is full of possibilities. He also said that India remained unnoticed during the UPA era, while its voice is taken seriously now.“Over the last nine years, India has seen political stability and a decisive government. India is carrying out reforms out of conviction, not compulsion anymore. India is a country that solves global problems today,” the prime minister said. He said that despite challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, India developed its own vaccination while his government carried out the world’s largest vaccination programme and sent medicines to countries in need too. He said that it was because of India’s emergence as a global power that it was given the opportunity to lead the G-20 countries – although the presidency is merely rotational.He gave out figures to claim that his welfare programmes like free ration, free vaccination, free housing to the homeless, free drinking water supply, direct cash transfer to farmers, internet connectivity to villages and electrification have greatly benefitted Dalits, OBCs, and Adivasis who were neglected by the Congress governments. He also listed out India’s purported growth in digital innovation, manufacturing, infrastructural improvement and start-ups, while claiming that terrorism has been contained in India. Also Read | Adani Scandal a National Security Matter and Striking Instance of Cronyism: Rahul Gandhi in LS‘Blessing of 140 crore Indians’“Will they [beneficiaries] believe in the lies and false accusations thrown at me? You must remember that the blessing of 140 crore Indians is my biggest Suraksha Kawach (protection gear) that no lie can penetrate,” Modi challenged the opposition ranks. He constantly invoked Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs and said that his government was for the welfare of these sections, a reflection of which is seen in the appointment of Droupadi Murmu, belonging to an Adivasi community, as India’s President. He equated the opposition MPs’ attack on the President’s Address with an attack on India’s Adivasis. He said that the people of India had not placed trust in him because of newspaper headlines or television outings but because he has dedicated his entire life to the welfare of Indians.Throughout his speech, he kept invoking how India’s 140 crore people are full of “self-confidence and pride” now. As the opposition benches kept interrupting him with loud calls of a JPC probe into allegations of stock manipulation and fraud made by the US-based short seller Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group, Modi remained unperturbed in what was clearly an act of political messaging in the run-up to 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His speech – based on the twin plank of India’s purported improvement in its global standing and welfarism for the poor – has come at a time when the Congress has shown a degree of resurgence. In 2023, the BJP will face the grand-old party in direct opposition in the assembly elections due to be held in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The prime minister’s repeated digs at the Congress and Rahul Gandhi only indicated that BJP’s electoral narrative in the run-up to the elections will attempt to defuse the political gains that the Congress may have made during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Soon after Modi’s speech, Gandhi responded quickly to say that “it is clear that the prime minister is protecting” Gautam Adani. The tug-of-war, quite likely, may have only just begun.
