‘India Did Not Rise In 2014, It Is Culmination Of 74 years’: Congress’ Anand Sharma in RS

"This is not sarcasm but whoever wrote it (the President's Address), did injustice to the President. This challenges the judgment of the people and negates the difficult situation before the country," said Anand Sharma during his speech on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address.

New Delhi: Coming down heavily on the Centre for dismissing the work done during previous governments, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday said India didn’t rise in just eight years, it took us 74 years to take the country where it stands now. In his speech on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, the Congress leader also enumerated the issues missing from the  President’s speech, and called it “just a laundry list of government announcement and programme.”

“From President’s Address, it is expected that after unbiased deliberation, achievements of the government will be listed, people would be made aware of the upcoming challenges and the mistakes made by the government will be acknowledged…However, it was just a laundry list of government announcements and programmes… This is not sarcasm but whoever wrote it (the President’s Address), did injustice to the President. This challenges the judgment of the people and negates the difficult situation before the country,” said Sharma.

He asked who wrote the President’s speech, and said, whoever wrote it should be answerable. “They did not do justice for the President, it belies the present circumstances,” Sharma said.

Elaborating further, he said a rosy picture is being shown, where everyone wants the country to progress, and a line is being drawn that the Opposition does not want it to.

He further alleged that there was no mention of national security in the address. “1 lakh forces deployed at China border. Newspapers know, foreign departments know, shouldn’t this be discussed in Parliament? In 1962, Nehru discussed the situation in the middle of a war. We were told that in-camera briefing will be done (on China), but nothing was done,” added the Congress leader

Criticising the government for not acknowledging the previous government’s work, the Congress leader said, “Nehru remained in jail for 14 years, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were martyred, how can you question their contribution? We acknowledge the work done during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure also. We never said Vajpayeeji didn’t work, but this government says that the Congress government has not done anything at all, which is wrong.”

Sharma insisted that the government cannot dismiss the work done by previous governments, as a country cannot run on a single ideology. “India did not rise in 2014, it is a culmination of 74 years,” he added.