Manmohan Singh too opened Assembly complexes

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 24

As politics over the inauguration of the new Parliament House complex raged, recent history shows past heads of national and state governments have unveiled legislative Assembly complexes and key buildings therein across states.

In December 2011, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated many new buildings in Manipur’s capital Imphal, including the newly built state Assembly complex. He was joined in the inauguration by then UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. In March 2010, Manmohan Singh, accompanied by Sonia Gandhi, declared open the world’s first “green legislative building” — Tamil Nadu Assembly-Secretariat Complex — in the presence of the then Chief Minister late M Karunanidhi.

Lately in February 2019, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar inaugurated the central hall of the Bihar Assembly. The Congress and Nitish’s JD(U) are part of 19 opposition parties that have announced the boycott of the May 28 inauguration of new Parliament by PM Modi. Yesterday, Union Minister Hardeep Puri had said the Congress should feel better remembering that on October 24, 1975, then PM Indira Gandhi inaugurated the Parliament Annexe and on August 15, 1987, then PM Rajiv Gandhi laid the foundation of the Parliament library.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, however, countered Puri today, saying that “those were subsidiary buildings, an annexe and a library. This is a whole new Parliament! Doesn’t the Constitution say the President is its head, convenes Parliament and prorogues it? So shouldn’t she inaugurate it rather than the Prime Minister?”

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