PM flays Oppn for criticizing Bill seeking dismissal of tainted politicians; says practice to run 'governments from jails' should stop

Gayaji/Begusarai(Bihar), Aug 22(PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lambasted the INDIA bloc for opposing the 130th Constitution Amendment Bill,  and said the practice of people in seats of power running governments from jail and signing files from behind bars should be stopped, in his first comments on the controversial Bill.

At a rally in Gayaji, a south Bihar town, Modi also charged the opposition with "trying to protect vote banks", despite the threat posed by "infiltration", which has led him to call for a "demography mission".

Modi's comments on the controversy surrounding the Bill for the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers, and ministers arrested on serious criminal charges for at least 30 days came amidst stiff criticism from the Opposition, which has dubbed the Bill as a "threat to democracy". The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha earlier this week.  "We have seen a regrettable situation in which people in seats of power have been running governments from jail, signing files from behind bars, tearing to shreds constitutional propriety," said Modi, in an apparent reference to former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was arrested in the alleged Delhi liquor scam in 2024 but refused to step down.

Modi also proudly claimed that there was "no taint of corruption" on his 11-year-old government, and drew a contrast with the previous Congress regimes, which he said saw many scams coming to the fore. He alleged that the corruption of RJD, while in power in Bihar, "is known even to the man on the street".

"So, we decided to bring in a law that provides for the dismissal of a corrupt chief minister, or even the Prime Minister, if he or she spends 30 days in jail. A lowly clerk, if he is jailed for a short period, is placed under suspension", Modi said.

"But when we tried to bring in a stringent law, the RJD, the Congress, and the Left were livid. They are angry because they are scared of facing punishment for their own sins," Modi alleged.

At the rally, he also said:"There is one more threat -- that of infiltrators (ghuspaithiye) that our nation faces, which I also spoke about in my Independence Day speech. They cannot be allowed to partake of the resources of our country. I have, therefore, called for a demography mission. But the Congress and the RJD want to protect these infiltrators for the sake of their vote bank politics." He again reiterated that every illegal infiltrator will be identified and removed.  The comments come in the backdrop of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which, the BJP claims, was needed to "remove names of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar from the voters' list".

The EC, which has ordered the exercise in Bihar ahead of assembly polls, has made it clear that SIR will be undertaken across the country in due course.

However, the INDIA bloc has been alleging that the exercise in Bihar was aimed at "helping" the BJP-led NDA in assembly polls through wrongful deletion of names of voters.

A statewide 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' on the issue is being taken out by Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Tejashwi Yadav, the INDIA bloc's face in Bihar, and other alliance partners.

During his visit to Bihar, where assembly elections are due later this year, Modi also inaugurated projects worth Rs 12,000 crore at Gayaji, and flagged off a couple of trains, including an Amrit Bharat connecting the central Bihar pilgrimage town to Delhi.

He followed it up with the inauguration of a bridge over the Ganga, built at a cost of more than Rs 1,000 crore, for which he flew to Begusarai district in a helicopter, about 120 km away, taking along Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary.

The Prime Minister also accused the Congress of being "insensitive" towards Bihar, alleging that "one of its chief ministers had famously told a public rally that he would not allow immigrants from Bihar to set foot on the soil of his state...And the RJD, their alliance partner, seemed to be in deep slumber." Describing Operation Sindoor as "a pledge I took on the soil of Bihar", he said: "Now, the message is loud and clear that no terrorist can escape after striking anywhere on Indian soil. Our missiles will hunt them down to the deepest recesses of the earth (patal lok)".  "Pakistan tried to retaliate, but none of its missiles could hit us. We blew away their missiles like pieces of straw (tinke ki tarah uda diya)," said Modi, who had vowed to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack at a rally in Madhubani district of north Bihar.  At Gayaji, the PM reached the venue in an open vehicle, in a style that has marked his visits to Bihar for the past several months. He waved at the crowds from atop the vehicle, flanked by Kumar, the JD(U) president, and Choudhary, a former state BJP president.

Modi began his speech with a few lines in the local dialect Magahi, and described Gayaji as "the land of Lord Buddha and Lord Vishnu", in an obvious reference to the Vishnupad temple and the nearby international Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya.

At Simaria, Modi walked down several paces on the newly constructed bridge and, with one of his hands firmly clasping Kumar's arm, waved at the crowds that stood watching the two leaders from the river's banks. PTI PKD NAC ACD PYK PYK