Parliament Inauguration: Himanta Biswa Sarma gets facts wrong while defending Modi

Himanta Biswa Sarma gets facts wrong in an attempt to defend the Modi government's decision of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu for the inauguration of the new Parliament.

Hyderabad: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, in an attempt to defend the Modi government’s decision of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu for the inauguration of the new Parliament building on May 28, made a blunder as he tried to divert attention by citing examples of non-BJP governments not inviting Governors for laying the foundation stones of or inaugurating Assembly buildings.

Sarma, who tweeted that five non-BJP State governments had laid foundation stones or inaugurated a new Assembly building in the last nine years, said all of these were by either the Chief Minister or Party President and not even once was the Governor or President invited. And as he added a list of these governments, he included Telangana as well, stating the Telangana government did not invite Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan for the inauguration of the “Assembly building”.

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In his haste to sling mud at others and defend Modi, he forgot that it was a new Secretariat building that was inaugurated by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and not an Assembly building. The Telangana government had not extended an invitation to the Governor since the Secretariat is purely for purposes of carrying out the State’s administrative functions.

Apart from Telangana, the other instances Sarma tweeted were from 2014, when UPA Chief Ministers laid foundation stones of Assembly building in Jharkhand and Assam, in 2018 when the Andhra Chief Minister laid the foundation of the new Assembly and in 2020 when Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone of the Chhattisgarh Assembly.