Family-run parties biggest threat to democracy: Modi targets Congress

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (February 8) trained his guns on the Congress, attacking them for destabilising the country and impeding development, all because its focus was on one family.

“The difficulty faced by Congress today is that they never thought of anything else before the dynasty. Family-run parties are the biggest threat to India’s democracy. When a family is paramount in a particular party, the biggest casualty is talent,” Modi said in the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address in Rajya Sabha.

He said the party was creating hurdles for the country’s development.

“Congress is creating hurdles in the development of the country. If Congress was not there, common people would not have waited for years to get power, water, and other basic facilities,” said Modi.

“If it was not there, the country would not have seen caste politics, the Emergency, the massacre of Sikhs and the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley,” Modi said in a sharp jibe at the Congress.

The PM suggested that the opposition party change its name from Indian National Congress to Federation of Congress.

The Congress in a way is in the grip of urban Naxals and so its thought has become negative and destructive, Modi said.

“The Congress high command’s policy is to discredit, destabilise and dismiss state governments. Congress dismissed over 50 state governments during its rule at Centre,” he said.

He even went on to say that the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had not acted to free Goa from the clutches of the Portuguese because he was more interested in protecting his international reputation.

“We are accused of trying to change or rewrite history. We are not changing history. We are just refreshing people’s memories. We are just taking history a few 100 years back as it should be. Some people’s version of history is about just one family. What can we do about that?” Modi wondered.

This country was a great one and it will remain so, he said, closing his speech, and appealing to people to improve the economy by taking part in the Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India) Mission.