NEW DELHI: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his planned fast on April 12 asking the latter to observe a fast to ‘atone for his false promises’.
Addressing the media, Owaisi asked as to why the Prime Minister didn’t fast for ‘his false promises, Dalits or not being able to provide employment’.
“Why doesn’t the prime minister sit on a fast to atone for his false promises? Will he sit on fast for farmers who lost their lives, for atrocities on Dalits and for not being able to provide employment,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Prime Minister, Owaisi said if he is ready to keep a fast for the recent incidents of disruptions in the on-going budget in the Parliament then he must do the same for issues like farmer’s suicide and rape incident of minor in Kathua.
“8-year-old girl kidnapped and murdered. BJP MLA accused in the rape case is getting special treatment. Prime Minister will not sit on the fast for the farmers; will the PM sir will fast for the farmers and Dalits, on every promise”, Owaisi added.
The AIMIM further mentioned of the fast to be observed by the PM Modi on Thursday over the disruptions caused during the Union budget session while blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ‘deliberately not let the house function’.
“PM Modi (is) going to fast from tomorrow, they could have easily moved the motion, they did not do that, BJP let (it) deliberately happen so that the house does not function,” Owaisi said.
His statement comes a day after PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah announced that they will observe a day-long fast on April 12, Thursday. Along with them, all the BJP MPs will also join the fast observation, they said.
On April 6, the second leg of the Budget Session, which had commenced on January 29, concluded with the Rajya Sabha losing over 121 hours. The Upper House had 30 sittings where the sittings were held for just 44 hours. There was no Question Hour in the Upper House for 27 days due to the uproar causing repeated adjournments, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu had said.
Issues like special status to Andhra Pradesh, bank scams, demand for Cauvery water management board, vandalising of statues, review of the recent Supreme Court order on SC/ST Act and law and order situation in Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh were some of the issues on which the House saw the uproar. The House lost nearly three- fourths of its time to disruptions and adjournments.
Upset by the loss of time caused due to disruptions, Naidu called the session ‘an eminently forgettable one’. “I am pained to note that it turned out to be an eminently forgettable one on account of utter disregard of the mandate of this important parliamentary institution and its responsibilities and missed opportunities,” Naidu had said in his concluding address to the 245th session of Rajya Sabha.
Due to the disruptions, the House could not debate the important Finance Bill 2018 but passed the payment of gratuity law without debate.