Nothing seems to have hit the Congress harder than PM Narendra Modi's speeches in both houses of Parliament. If in the Lok Sabha, he had focused on "balak buddhi" (infantile mentality) of the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, then in the Rajya Sabha, Modi was asserting that his government had given a free hand to central probe agencies to investigate corruption. Weeding out corruption, he made it clear, was his mission and conviction. "I have given a free hand to central agencies to go after the corrupt. The centre will not intervene if they work with honesty and for honesty. Nobody will be spared, this is Modi's guarantee," he said.
In the Rajya Sabha, he made a pointed attack on Sonia Gandhi and on the National Advisory Council where she presided during the UPA I and II. Underlining that the role of a super body like the NAC was a violation of the Constitution, PM Modi sought to know, "Who gave the power to the NAC to overrule the Prime Minister's post? Who allowed the PM's chair to be ridiculed?"
These questions from Modi are significant in that the Congress has been harping on a narrative that the Samvidhaan, or the Constitution, is under threat during the Modi government. The PM also brought on record how Rahul Gandhi had publicly shredded an ordinance promulgated by the then-Manmohan Singh government to protect a convicted lawmaker in 2013. The tone and tenor of Modi's speech shocked the Congress. Congress leaders who had expected PM Modi to feel the pressure of running a coalition found he had not changed much; he was still speaking tough and sounding uncompromising, the way he had been in the past decade. He was very much speaking the same language. Was he positioning himself for the upcoming assembly elections? Has nothing changed?
Why did PM Modi make these reiterations about his fight against corruption? Who were these words meant for? Clearly, his remarks were in response to the Opposition's charge of misusing central agencies by his government in recent times. Many opposition leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, were arrested in alleged money-laundering cases. The Opposition had raised questions over what it called ‘deliberate' targeting of its leaders through probes by the ED, the CBI and the Income Tax department. Modi listed incidents before 2014 when many leaders, now in the opposition camp, had accused Congress-led UPA governments of abusing investigation agencies. He recalled how former Uttar Pradesh CM late Mulayam Singh Yadav had once blamed the Congress Government at the Centre for misusing central investigating agencies. He also cited the 2013 Supreme Court verdict calling the CBI a caged parrot.
In the Lok Sabha, Modi lashed out against Rahul Gandhi for speaking against the Hindu community and warned that displaying posters of gods should not be used for "personal, political interests". He also warned the Samajwadi Party (SP) that the Congress was a parasite or a party that had performed poorly in states where it contested without its INDIA bloc allies. He indirectly warned the SP that it could be weakened if it continued supporting the Congress to grow in Uttar Pradesh. Sharing his disappointment with Rahul's speech in the Lok Sabha, PM Modi made it clear that the LoP simply did not know what to say and how to behave - after all much of what Rahul had said had to be expunged by the Speaker. "He (Rahul Gandhi) sometimes winks inside the Lok Sabha... the country now knows him well. The entire country is now telling him - tumse na ho paaega (you won't be able to perform)," he added.
An important aspect of PM Modi's two speeches in the Parliament, even as it was made amid steady uproar by Opposition MPs, particularly the continuous heckling in the Lok Sabha, was that he is in total command. Party cadres, who may have been dispirited and dismayed ever since the June 4 results that gave a muted verdict to the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, needed to listen to such a forceful speech from the PM. Modi's scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha by asserting that the people of India had rejected the politics of illusion in the 2024 polls and prioritised performance over propaganda was an assurance that his firepower had not been dimmed by the electoral verdict. He was more substantive when he spoke in the Rajya Sabha. He said that work done by his government in the previous two terms had received whole-hearted support and blessings from the people of the country.
It was also nice to see that Modi's sense of humour is intact. Without taking the name of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, Modi took a jibe at him for describing his government as one-third government and wished his words would come true. "Some Congress friends keep saying one-third government. What can be a bigger truth – we have completed 10 years, 20 more remain," he said and added that “in 10 years, the work we have done with commitment". He charged the Congress with using the Dalit community as a pawn in its political and electoral battles whenever it faced defeat. Be it in the latest round of the Speaker's election when it propped up Kodikunnil Suresh, or during 2017, when the Congress had fielded Meira Kumar as a candidate against BJP's Ram Nath Kovind for presidential elections. He charged the Congress with appointing Kharge, a Dalit leader, to carry the burden of its electoral defeats while the Gandhi family walked away without any responsibility.
He recalled how Sushil Kumar Shinde was propped up to take on Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in the 2002 vice-presidential election when the odds were against him. Taking a jibe at the Opposition for claiming to guard the interests of minorities, Modi also questioned why Congress's allies said nothing about what happened with minorities in Turkman Gate and Muzaffarnagar during the Emergency, referring to the massive demolition drives and forced sterilisation programs in Muslim-majority areas. He equally panned the Opposition for not taking a stand on atrocities against women. Drawing attention to the public flogging of a couple in West Bengal that was widely shared on social media, he said, “Those who consider themselves progressive pro-women leaders have not expressed concern... because the incident is related to a party, which they have a political connection with. And that is worrying.” He was referring to the incident from West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district, where a Trinamool Congress functionary has been accused of flogging a couple for adultery.
Modi also attacked the Opposition for levelling charges of misuse of investigative agencies by his government. He read out statements of late Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat from 2013, where they had accused the UPA government of misusing the CBI for political gains. “I would like to say without hesitation that I have given a free hand to agencies to take stringent action against corruption and the corrupt,” he said. “The government will not interfere anywhere. They should work honestly for honesty… I would like to tell the citizens that no corrupt (person)” will be spared. Modi's words could be bad news for a number of Congress leaders."
(Lakshmi Iyer is a journalist who has been covering politics for four decades in Delhi & Mumbai. She is on X @liyer)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author