BJP wants to alter history, control people's minds, Mahua Moitra in Lok Sabha

Slamming the BJP a day after a similar attack by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress' Mahua Moitra on Thursday said the government wanted to "alter the history" since recalling India's past of secularism makes them "very very insecure".

New Delhi:Slamming the BJP a day after a similar attack by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress' Mahua Moitra on Thursday said the government wanted to "alter the history" since recalling India's past of secularism makes them "very very insecure".

"They are fearful of the future and they mistrust the present. The President spoke about freedom fighters who secured India's rights. But this is just lip service," she said in Lok Sabha during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address given a day earlier.

On the president's address, she said it was an assessment of the government. "I stand before you to vehemently disagree with that assessment and to ask the most important question that faces us all. What is the kind of republic we want, what is our idea of India that we are willing to stand up for?" she said.

The TMC MP continued with her attack on the government and said it wanted to control people by getting into their lives and their minds. "You fear a future India which is comfortable in its own skin, which is comfortable with conflicting realities... You are not content with just the vote, you want to get inside our heads, inside our homes, to tell us what to eat, what to wear, who to love. But your fear alone cannot keep the future at bay," she said.

The government, the MLA known for her fiery speeches said, had "reinvented" Savarkar as a freedom fighter. "The apology letter he wrote to the British begging for release is now being recast as some kind of strategic masterstroke," she said. The President's address, she said, referred to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on multiple occasions. "...this is the same Netaji who said the government of India should have an absolutely neutral and impartial attitude towards all religions. Would Netaji have approved of the Haridwar Dharma Sansad?" she said.

She also pointed out how the insignia of Netaji's Indian National Army (INA) was Tipu Sultan's "springing tiger". "The same Tipu Sultan that you erased from our textbooks, after whom you cannot bear to name roads or sports stadiums." The motto of INA, she added, were three Urdu words Itihaad, Etimaad, Qurbani(Unity, Trust, and Sacrifice). "The same Urdu language this government is so delighted to replace with Hindi as the first and official language of Jammu and Kashmir."

Moitra was not allowed to complete her speech by the deputy speaker Rama Devi, who asked her to "speak with love and not so much anger". Later Moitra tweeted about it: "Such fear, such shamelessness. I had only paragraph left to finish, my allotted time of 13 mins was NOT over."

In another tweet, she wrote: "LS Speaker had alloted AT LEAST 13 mins to me, when confronted in his chamber he claimed he was not in chair hence cant be blamed. When further cornered he said “It was my greatness that I even allowed you 13 mins in 1st place.” Unbelievable.

"And who is Chair to interrupt me (taking up MY valuable time) to lecture me on whether I should speak with gussa or pyar? None of your business Madam. You can only correct me on rules. You are NOT the moral science teacher for LS," she wrote in another tweet.

Earlier in the day, Moitra had tweeted a dare saying that she wanted to give early heads up to the BJP to get their "heckler team" ready for her speech in Lok Sabha today. "Am speaking this evening in Lok Sabha on President’s Address. Just wanted to give early heads up to @BJP to get heckler team ready & read up on imaginary points of order. Drink some gaumutra shots too," Moitra tweeted.