Mamata Banerjee on Thursday urged the people to come together and pledge to protect the democratic ideals in India’s Constitution, vowing to build the nation envisioned by its founding fathers.
The Bengal chief minister issued a message on Twitter on the morning of Republic Day.
“Heartiest greetings to everyone on 74th Republic Day!” she posted on the microblogging site.
“Today, let us all pledge to protect & uphold the democratic ideals of Justice, Liberty, Equality & Fraternity as enshrined in our Constitution,” added Mamata. “Together, we shall strive to build a nation our founding fathers envisioned.”
Although there was no element of apparent criticism or belligerence in the content of her message, sources in the Trinamul Congress said the party chief was quite clearly using the occasion to reiterate her assertion of how the nation has been run aground and ruined by the BJP over the past nine years of the Narendra Modi government.
“Everyone knows how far we have come away from the ideals of the Constitution and how much damage has been done to our democracy in the saffron regime. She did not want to embitter the occasion by issuing an aggressively critical statement. But what she meant was clear to all,” said a senior Trinamul MP.
He said the trajectory of Indian democracy had become more uncertain than ever after two terms of the BJP at the Centre as key democratic institutions have been rendered brittle. He said Mamata had been flagging major concerns, such as hounding or harassment of all non-saffron voices, political and otherwise.
“Political opponents and all voices of criticism or dissent have been harassed or prosecuted, or at least investigated for financial irregularities and put under surveillance, thus restricting critical voices,” said the MP.