Speaker, VP, top ministers skip Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday event at Parliament

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 14

Presiding officers of both Houses of Parliament and top government ministers on Sunday gave a miss to the event to offer floral tributes to country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament on the occasion of the late leader’s birth anniversary.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu were both absent. None of the senior government ministers came to offer floral tributes either. Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Bhanu Pratap Singh was present.

Congress chief whip in the Rajya Sabha and former minister Jairam Ramesh later tweeted, “Extraordinary scene today in Parliament at the traditional function to mark the birth anniversary of those whose portraits adorn the Central Hall. Lok Sabha Speaker absent. Rajya Sabha Chairman absent. Can it get more atrocious than this?”

Trinamool Congress leader in the upper house Derek O’Brien while responding to Jairam’s tweet said, “Nothing surprises me anymore. This dispensation is destroying India’s great institutions including Parliament one day at a time.”

Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted his tributes to Pt Nehru saying “Tributes to Pt Jawaharlal Nehru ji on his birth anniversary.”

Congress president Sonia Gandhi visited Shanti Vana to pay tributes to Pt Nehru and later attended the floral tribute ceremony at the Central Hall of Parliament where party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma, KC Venugopal and Congress MP from Amritsar Gurjit Singh Aujla were among those present.

The Congress had earlier questioned the absence of Nehru portraits from the material to mark the 75th year of Independence released by the Indian Council of Historical Research.

The ICHR had later said the poster in question was only one in the series of several that would be unveiled as part of the “Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav” event.

The Congress has consistently accused the ruling BJP of attempting to undermine the legacy of Nehru.

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