As sloganeering hammered his speech in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered glass of water to an Opposition MP who was raising slogans while replying to a nearly 18-hour-long discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in the Lower House.
Amid relentless sloganeering by the Opposition members, who are in higher numbers this time than the previous Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday mounted a stinging counterattack on Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi as he mocked him as 'balak buddhi' (childish mind), accused him of linking Hindus with violence and making false claims in Lok Sabha, and sought stringent action against him to protect parliamentary democracy.
In the middle of his speech, PM Modi stopped and offered water to an Opposition MP raising slogans in a vieled counter to the rival parties.
A day before PM Modi's Lok Sabha speech, Rahul Gandhi speech in Lok Sabha sparked sharp reactions by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the House when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other bigwigs of the Saffron party took turns to stand and counter him, and even outside when the BJP leaders took to social media to respond.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi launched a no-holds-barred attack on the BJP in the Lok Sabha on Monday, accusing the leaders of the ruling BJP of dividing people on communal lines, drawing massive protests from the treasury benches.
On Tuesday, in his nearly 135-minute speech, which saw continuous slogan-shouting on the Manipur issue and heckling by opposition members, PM Modi turned his usual combative self after initially listing various successes of his government since 2014 as he took on the Congress and Rahul Gandhi without naming him.
"The mandate for the Congress is to sit in the opposition and keep shouting once it runs out of logic," he said.
Asserting that the main opposition party delivered its third worst performance in the national elections and failed to reach 250-mark after the 1984 polls, he took a swipe at Gandhi saying, "Aaj desh inse kah raha hai - tumse na ho payega (Country is telling him that you are not up to it)".
He said the Congress became a "parasitic party" in these polls as its tally of 99 was largely curtsey its allies, while it performed poorly with a strike rate of merely 26 per cent where the party was pitted directly against the BJP or was the main opposition force. Its strike rate rose to 50 per cent where it was a junior partner, he added.
Keeping the Congress, especially Rahul Gandhi, in his crosshairs, Modi said it has become addicted to lies like a man-eater animal to blood.
The House witnessed childish conduct yesterday, he said of Gandhi's speech in which the Congress leader had targeted the government over the Agnipath scheme, the MSP regime and the revamping work in Ayodhya and accused it of violating tenets of Hinduism by allegedly spreading violence and hate, drawing massive protests by treasury benches. Many of his comments were later expunged by the Chair.
"Laments of 'balak buddhi' went on. 'I have been beaten'. A new drama was rolled out to gain sympathy," he said in reference to Gandhi's charge that he was targeted in different criminal cases at the behest of the central government.
