The country has become a “surveillance state” and the entire thing is being run with “control and arrogance”, Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar said on Thursday.

Sircar in his maiden speech in Parliament attacked the government over the current status of the economy, issues of poverty and unemployment, policies and reduction in allocation of funds towards education and health.

Referring to the Pegasus spyware snooping issue, he said the country had become a “surveillance state” as evidence pointed towards it, but the government did not have the “guts” to come out and say no.

“They send governors with an intention of disturbing the constitutional mechanism of a state,” Sircar said, adding that “the one which we have got, will also be the less said is better”.

On the Central Vista Redevelopment project, Sircar, during the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's address, said it was “an arrogant display of hubris” by the government. Under the project, six “unimaginative” and “unaesthetic” buildings will come up on two sides of Rajpath by breaking down buildings such as National Museum, Vigyan Bhavan, National Archives of India and National Cultural Center, he said.

Sircar, a former bureaucrat, said he had served in the government and there was no need for the project. “I have served in the central bureaucracy Mr (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, you have not served. I know there is no need for it because even you bring them down to your Modinagar, there will still be people who would be working outside,” he said.

Sircar said India was today at crossroads. “It has (economy) never gone through such a bad patch. I have worked for 41 years in the government and I know it has never gone through such a bad patch, not even in 1991, and much of the destruction of the economy is thanks to deliberate policies,” he said.