Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday hit back at the Congress for its claim that the 'democracy is in danger' under the BJP government. He said that the grand old party is still not ready to accept that people have elected some other government since 2014.
"Unfortunately for this Congress family, democracy means their being in power. They are still not ready to accept that since 2014, some other government has been elected for the country, other Prime Minister who has been elected by the country," the Prime Minister said in an exclusive interview with India Today.
"They (Congress) are not able to accept it from their heart and that is why they feel bad even if you are implementing their issues, promises, and their manifesto. If you are implementing their words today, they (the opposition) should be happy that their work is getting completed, it is a good thing," PM Modi said while responding to a question by India Today's News Director Rahul Kanwal.
The opposition leaders have been claiming, in their election rallies, that institutions have weakened under Prime Minister Modi and there is a danger to democracy if he returns in 2024.
Contrary to this claim, PM Modi suggested that he has been working on encouraging the debate in Parliament. He said the government has been repeatedly telling the Opposition to come to the Parliament for a debate but "they feel that they have nothing to say, they don't even have people to say anything."
"All their new MPs come and tell me that Sir, our five years have been wasted and we could not speak a single word in it. I am talking about the Opposition. I also told their leaders to do this, give an hour to your young first-time MPs, then disturb (Parliament) later. My effort is that these people do something but unfortunately for this Congress family, democracy means their being in power," the prime minister said.
"Pranab Mukherjee used to say, you must have seen in his book the work he did with me, how democratically he worked and how much we have raised the prestige of the President's institution."
PM Modi said the charge against his government is that it has no say in the judiciary. "About the Supreme Court, the government is being accused of having no say in the Supreme Court, this is the allegation against us. And in that, we are being questioned for our ability. It means that earlier there were some capable people who used to manage the judiciary and that institution was fine. Why I should manage, the law will do its work."
In March this year, when 600 lawyers, including Harish Salve, wrote to CJI DY Chandrachud saying vested interests were trying to influence the judiciary, the Prime Minister in a tweet said: "To browbeat and bully others is vintage Congress culture." He said five decades ago itself the Congress had called for a "committed judiciary" - "they shamelessly want commitment from others for their selfish interests but desist from any commitment towards the nation."