Parliament: Emergency reminds us of the importance of democracy, says Narendra Modi

Here are the day’s updates from Parliament:

7.31 pm: Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir R Chowdhury, claims the party has succeeded as the prime minister, “who used to remain reluctant to quote any Congress leader, today quoted Nehru ji in his speech”, ANI reports.

7.30 pm: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says: “Modi, whose party and he himself, has rarely given credit to the Congress, today, chose to say that we aren’t giving credit to some people. I don’t believe that’s an entirely accurate criticism.”

6.06 pm: Modi says he remembers Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar when there is a discussion on water resources, ANI reports. “It was he who worked passionately on waterways and irrigation,” Modi adds.

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Narendra Modi attacks Congress in Parliament, says Opposition is no longer connected to the roots

6 pm: The prime minister says: “We have to build the India our freedom fighters dreamt of. I urge all to observe Gandhi Ji’s 150th birth anniversary and 75 years of India’s freedom with great enthusiasm.”

5.53 pm: “Our government is just three weeks old,” Modi says according to The Hindu. “ Within three weeks, we made landmark decisions such as pension for farmers, expanded PM Kisan, scholarship for children of police, [organised] all-party meetings.”

5.48 pm: The prime minister says it is not possible to forget the dark days of the Emergency. Tuesday is the 44th anniversary of the imposition of the Emergency by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “Who imposed the Emergency?” Modi asks.

“Emergency was imposed so that someone’s government doesn’t fall,” the prime minister says. “We remember Emergency not to undermine someone, but to remember the importance of democracy.”

5.46 pm: “I never think about polls in terms of victory and defeat,” the prime minister says according to ANI. “The opportunity to serve 130 crore Indians and work to make a positive difference in the lives of our citizens is special to me.” He adds that it is difficult to eradicate diseases persisting for 70 years within five years.

5.38 pm: Modi says he is the only prime minister who has asserted that every government played its role in developing the country. He dares the Congress to mention the number of times Vajpayee or Narasimha Rao were praised during the rule of the United Progressive Alliance government.

“There are some who feel only a handful of names contributed to national development,” he says according to ANI. “They only want to hear those few names and ignore others. We think differently, we feel each and every citizen has worked for country’s development.”

5.30 pm: “For the past five years, I always felt the government should be there for those who don’t have anyone to take care of them,” Modi says according to The Hindu. He claims that every BJP leader cared about the poor.

5.20 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that after many years, a government was voted back to power with a strong mandate, ANI reports. “This Lok Sabha elections have shown that more than themselves, the people of India are thinking about the betterment of the country, this spirit is commendable,” he says.

5.08 pm: Nationalist Congress Party MP Majeed Memon attacks the Centre for incidents of lynching, PTI reports. “With all humility and respect I am asking from the Prime Minister how can the government win the trust of Muslim youth when Tabrez [a youth from Jharkhand] was mercilessly beaten and forced to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman,” he asks. Memon wonders if the 21 crore Muslims in India were able to secure their right to life as guaranteed by the Constitution.

4.57 pm: NK Premachandran, an MP of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, moves 40 amendments to the president’s address, The Hindu reports. He says Kovind only spoke about so-called achievements of Modi 1.0 government and has nothing about the future.

4.42 pm: Communist Party of India MP D Raja wonders whether India will become an authoritarian fascist state or remain a democratic republic. He alleges that BJP’s new India is imposing an illiberal, monolithic, sociopolitical order. The bench asks Raja to end his speech, but Opposition MPs back him.

4.31 pm: Congress MP PL Punia says in the Rajya Sabha that despite the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, manual scavenging continues to be a problem, The Hindu reports.

4.19 pm: As many as 64 people had died and over 1.4 lakh hectare crop area affected due to cyclone Fani in Odisha, the Union Home Ministry tells the Lok Sabha, PTI reports. “In addition, infrastructure like roads, power, railway, telecommunications etc. were also damaged in Odisha,” Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai says.

4.07 pm: Union Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says people can chant “Jai Shri Ram” by embracing others, and not “throttling” them, PTI reports. Naqvi makes remark with reference to the Jharkhand lynching incident.

“Such incidents cannot be justified. We have committed that we won’t let the destructive agenda dominate the development agenda,” he says. “People who are involved in such incidents have only one motive – to spoil the positive atmosphere created by the government.”

3.54 pm: Kerala Congress (M) MP Thomas Chazhikadan claims that prominent economists are unable to work with the government as its policies are not in the interest of the people, PTI reports. He points to the resignation of Deputy Reserve Bank of India Governor Viral Acharya, former Governor Urjit Patel and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian.

3.44 pm: “The central government has followed a holistic, multi-pronged approach for combating LWE [left-wing extremism],” Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy says, according to PTI. “It supplements the efforts of the state governments with a wide range of measures, including security, development and ensuring rights and entitlements of local communities.”

3.39 pm: Incidents of Naxal violence have reduced by 43.4% and deaths due to such incidents have dipped by 60.4% in the past five years, the home ministry claims. As many as 8,782 cases of violence were reported between 2009 and 2013 as against 4,969 cases during 2014 to 2018, Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy tells the Lok Sabha in a written reply, according to PTI.

Similarly, 3,326 people, including security forces personnel, died between 2009 and 2013, while it came down to 1,321 between 2014 and 2018, the ministry adds.

3.36 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the president’s address is expected at 5 pm, Firstpost reports.

3.34 pm: Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien tells the BJP to bring in more bills that favour women in Parliament, The Indian Express reports. “Bring a bill which affects 60 crore women, not 7 crore women,” O’Brien tells the Rajya Sabha.

3.32 pm: Karnataka BJP MP Tejasvi Surya claims politics was a family business that was in the control of “oligarchs, and a kleptocracy” till Narendra Modi took over, according to Firstpost. He adds that the people of Karnataka are reeling under a corrupt administration. The Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) are in power in the state.

3.23 pm: “The Islamic State is using various internet-based social media platforms to propagate its ideology,” Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. “Cyberspace is being closely watched in this regard by agencies concerned and action is taken as per the law.” States and Union territories in coastal areas have been advised to enhance surveillance regularly, he added.

3.21 pm: As many as 155 members and sympathisers of terrorist organisation Islamic State have been arrested in India so far, the Ministry of Home Affairs tells the Lok Sabha, PTI reports.

2.39 pm: The Centre tells the Lok Sabha that over 700 terrorists have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir over the last three years, PTI reports. “The government has adopted a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism,” Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy says. “Security forces are taking effective and continuous action in countering terrorism. This has resulted in corresponding change in the number of such incidents, including casualties.”

2.20 pm: Shiv Sena MP Prataprao Jadhav expresses concern about the population explosion of “a certain community”.

2 pm: “The common Indian felt that the victory of the Prime Minister, is the victory of new India,” BJP MP from Karnataka Tejasvi Surya says. “We were a culturally repressed country. A young Indian would cringe for belonging to the great Hindu civilisation. That has changed in the last five years. We feel proud that we belong to the Hindu civilisation.”

1.44 pm: West Bengal BJP MP Dilip Ghosh claims that there is a plot to turn West Bengal into “East Bangladesh”, The Hindu reports. He alleges that while there are schools in the state, there are no teachers. There are police stations but no police officers, he claims. Ghosh adds that people who do not speak Bengali are not regarded as part of West Bengal any more.

1.32 pm: M Srinivasulu Reddy of the YSR Congress Party congratulates the BJP for its victory in the Lok Sabha elections. He then asks for special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

1.20 pm: Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra opposes the Motion of Thanks in the Lok Sabha, The Hindu reports. She says the nationalism in Parliament is “superficial, xenophobic and narrow”. Moitra also claims that one man controls five television channels, and that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry keeps a watch on anti-government news.

1 pm: Telugu Desam Party MP Jayadev Galla says that the people of Andhra Pradesh have given the YSR Congress a chance to do what his party could not – get special status from the Centre, The Hindu reports. “In Andhra Pradesh, both the BJP and the TDP have suffered heavy losses,” he says. “The people of Andhra Pradesh punished the BJP, and decided to give the YSR Congress one chance to get from the Centre what the TDP was not able to do.”

12.50 pm: The Centre informs the Lok Sabha that it has written to states seeking their views on whether the crop insurance scheme should be made voluntary for farmers, PTI reports. At present, the scheme is compulsory.

Minister of State for Agriculture Purshottam Ropala says the letter was written after some state governments and farmer unions demanded that the ministry make the scheme voluntary.

12.45 pm: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Dayanidhi Maran blames the Centre for water problems in Chennai, Firstpost reports. “But the AIADMK government is doing nothing,” he says. “The government’s ally in Tamil Nadu is complacent. President [Ram Nath] Kovind speaks about anti-corruption, but the most corrupt government is functioning in Tamil Nadu.”

His remarks lead to a ruckus by BJP MPs in the Lok Sabha, who say Maran’s remarks should be expunged.

12.40 pm: BJP leader and Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar files his nomination for the Rajya Sabha at the Gujarat Legislative Assembly in the presence of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, ANI reports.

12.26 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to reply to the president’s address, but his speech has been postponed to Wednesday following the adjournment of the Rajya Sabha till 2 pm, Firstpost reports.

12.17 pm: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says many unauthorised cow protection panels are indulging in hooliganism, and asks if the Centre would authorise such committees. Singh merely replies that the concerns of parliamentarians will be addressed.

12.15 pm: Ravindra Shyamnarayan, a BJP MP, asks if the Centre plans to protect indigenous cows. Union minister Giriraj Singh says cow protection is a state subject, and that the Animal Welfare Board takes of all animals, including cows, The Hindu reports.

12 noon: The Rajya Sabha is adjourned till 2 pm. Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu makes an obituary reference to Rajasthan BJP MP Madan Lal Saini, who died on Monday. The members observe two minutes of silence before the Upper House is adjourned.

11.40 am: Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule asks what the government is doing to combat the water crisis in Maharashtra, The Hindu reports. Minister of State for Agriculture and Family Welfare Parshottam Rupala says Maharashtra is the only state that has managed to effectively harvest rainwater.

11 am: After the Lok Sabha convenes, new MPs who did not take oath on June 17 now do so. This includes Nusrat Jahan Ruhi and Mimi Chakraborty from the Trinamool Congress, The Hindu reports.

10.40 am: Congress MPs from Kerala stage a demonstration outside Parliament demanding farm loan waivers. They protested in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue, ANI reports.

10.25 am: Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar will file his nomination to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat on Tuesday. Bye-elections to two seats in the Rajya Sabha have been necessitated following the resignations of Amit Shah and Smriti Irani, Bharatiya Janata Party MPs who won Lok Sabha elections.