New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to draw fire from opposition Congress for his politically partisan conduct during his foreign tours. As he returned from a tour of Dhaka, Modi was sharply criticized for referring to the then prime minister Indira Gandhi”s role in the war of liberation for Bangladesh-“ despite being a woman.”
”This is the RSS mindset at work. They have no respect for women. So much so that they do not even allow women to become their members. We condemn such an approach,” said Congress spokesperson Shobha Oza.
The party”s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma also launched an all round attack on Modi”s partisan conduct in Bangladesh.” He does not behave as the prime minister of India. He behaves as the leader of a partisan political party and does not make references that are due in the context of the history of the country,” he added.
Sharma said that behaving in a partisan manner the prime minister did not invite the chief ministers of Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya to accompany him to this visit. “ We had insisted that the cooperation of the state of Assam should be enlisted before the passage of the constitutional amendment for the Land Boundary Agreement between the two countries, and after this was incorporated the bill was passed by both houses of the parliament,” observed the Congress leader.
He also added that the LBA was actually worked out between prime minister Manmohan Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina but was blocked in the parliament by the BJP. “ But the Prime Minister does not acknowledge all these historical facts,” he charged.
Sharma said the trade agreements signed during the visit are also a part of the continuum between the two countries but the prime minister lacks the statesmanship to acknowledge these realities.
”While accepting the Bangladeshi honour on behalf of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, it would have been in the fitness of things for him to acknowledge that Atalji had referred to the then prime minister Indira Gandhi as “ Durga” for her courageous role in the war of liberation” said Sharma while regretting that Modi had not done so.
