PM had the numbers but not the answers 

It was as if Sachin Tendulkar had decided to bat like the dreadfully boring English batsman Geoff Boycott, tweeted historian Ramchandra Guha while reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the debate on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha.

BJP had been allotted three and a half hours during the debate and out of it almost two hours were taken up by the Prime Minister. The sharpest point scored by the PM was when he said he was also a Shiv Bhakt and would pray to the lord to give enough strength to the opposition (Rahul Gandhi) to move a no-confidence motion in 2024.

Barring that mocking moment, the PM’s speech was a rambling account, a laundry list of all his schemes from the soil health card to the crop insurance scheme, from the Jan Dhan Yojana to Swachh Bharat. It was also a rant directed predictably at the Congress and the family, accusing them of destabilising the nation and emotionally blackmailing the people to gain power.

His mimicry of Sonia Gandhi’s accent embarrassed some who felt it did not behove the Prime Minister. “NaMo is mimicking Mrs.Gandhi's accent in Parliament- Not opposition leaders but a PM must respect his designation & chair. Remind him that he's a PM of India & not a troll or party karyakarta anymore.Decency is a crown & it seems he doesn't like to wear it…,” read a comment on Twitter.

While the Prime Minister read out figures from files produced by the PMO, he seemed to be reading many of them for the first time. Tweeted an amused INC leader Shakeel Ahmed, “Poor Mr. Modi, In his nervousness to hide his failure in employment generation, he mentioned auto rickshaw, cars, commercial vehicles, doctors, chartered accountants, lawyers etc., as if they appeared in India after May, 2014.”

NO ANSWERS

The Prime Minister, however, did not address most of the charges levelled by the opposition during the debate. Some of the questions he failed to address or evaded were as follows:

• Why is the prime minister silent when Dalits and Muslims are lynched?

• Why doesn’t he say something to restrain his ministers who go around saying that they would change the Constitution?

• Why does he keep quiet when there is violence against women?

• Why did he allow Reliance Jio to use his photograph in their advertisement?

• What prompted him to alter the Rafaledeal ?

• What prompted him to drop HAL and bring in Reliance Defence into the Rafale deal?

• What happened to his promise to generate 50 million jobs a year ?

• If his Government can give loan waivers and haircuts worth three lakh Crore to industries, then why is he reluctant to allow similar waiver to farmers?

AsaduddinOwaisi, in the two minutes allotted to him, managed to pose seven questions to the Prime Minister, none of which was addressed by the PM. They were as follows:

• The PM had said that he wanted to see Muslim youth holding the Quran in one hand and the computer in another. Then why has the Government not enhanced scholarship to students from minority communities since 2013 ?

• Under the 15-point programme for the minorities, the Cabinet Secretary is to hold a review meeting every four months. Why has a single meeting not been held in the last four years ?

• Why is the percentage of minority communities not even one per cent in CPMF, banks, Railways etc. ?

• A sum of Rs 1,400 Crore seem to have been spent by the PM on his foreign trips. What has India gained ?

• Why has one of the Supreme Court judges who ruled in favour of relaxing the SC/ST Act been appointed to head the National Green Tribunal ?

• Why is both bank interest and Inflation 6% ?

• Does the Prime Minister want a Congress-mukt Bharat or a Muslim-Dalit-Adivasi-mukt Bharat?