Today marked the beginning of the inauguration ceremony for India’s new Parliament building. Upon their arrival at the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla were seen participating in the havan and puja. The legendary “Sengol” has been placed close to the speaker’s chair of the Lok Sabha by PM Modi.
The morning portion of the ceremony will conclude at around 9:30 am, and the second leg is anticipated to start at noon with the singing of the national anthem in the Lok Sabha chamber in front of all the dignitaries, including Prime Minister Modi.
The focus of the 35-minute speech by the prime minister was on presenting a “new India” that had abandoned a “slave mentality” and was progressing. In his speech, the word “new” appeared more than 40 times.
Every nation has experienced a new awakening of consciousness at some point in its history, according to Mr. Modi; the most recent instance of this occurred 25 years before India attained independence. “India will celebrate its 100th anniversary of independence in 25 years. In these 25 years, we must work together to transform India into a developed country. India will become a developed India in the next 25 years thanks to the new laws that will be passed in this new building of Parliament, he claimed. According to him, the new Parliament House will see the dawn of an “atmanirbhar Bharat” (self-sufficient India), and it serves as an illustration of how the ancient and the modern can coexist.
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Intricate ceremony
The official opening ceremony was split into two parts. In the morning, Mr. Modi paid floral tribute to the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the property while wearing a dhoti and kurta and being accompanied by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. He then performed the Ganapati homam while priests chanted Vedic hymns. After bowing before the Sengol, he carried the scepter to Tamil Nadu’s high priests of the various adherents to ask for their blessings. The Sengol was then installed in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker’s chair in the Lok Sabha chamber after being carried in a procession to the new Parliament building to the sounds of nadaswaram and the chanting of Vedic mantras.
An interfaith prayer service was also held to commemorate the event. In appreciation for their crucial contribution to the building’s construction, the prime minister presented shawls and trinkets to a few of the workers.
At noon, Mr. Modi, Mr. Birla, and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh entered the new structure to start the second part of the ceremony. The Lok Sabha audience gave him a standing ovation as they greeted him, and chants of “Modi, Modi,” “Bharat Mata ki Jai,” and “Harr, Harr Mahadev” filled the chamber. There was also the sporadic “Shivaji Maharaj ki jai”. The sloganeering continued until the three arrived at the dais, at which point the formal
Boycott of the opposition
There were 22 opposition party MPs missing. The event was attended by prominent guests including former president Ram Nath Kovind, Supreme Court judges, Chief Ministers Y.S. Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde, and Neiphu Rio.
In an indirect reference to the Opposition leaders who were criticising the building of the new Parliament, Mr Modi recited a Sanskrit shloka to emphasise that luck runs out for those who stop moving forward but that the fate of those who keep moving continues to soar. In light of the anticipated increase in the number of MPs, he claimed that the ultramodern complex was “needed of the hour.”
The Prime Minister spent a lot of time discussing “democracy” in response to criticism from the Opposition for bringing the “monarchical” Sengol into Parliament and for his alleged autocratic behaviour. For us, democracy is a culture, an idea, and a tradition rather than just a political system. Symbolising the “kartavya path” (path of duty), “seva path” (path of service), and “rashtra path” (path of the nation), he claimed, was the Sengol.
He also provided an account of the nine years of his administration, which he referred to as “navnirman” (regeneration). He claimed that during this time, four crore houses and eleven crore toilets were built, four lakh kilometres of village roads were laid, fifty thousand water reservoirs were built, and more than thirty thousand panchayat bhavans were established.
