PM Modi, BJP leaders observe day-long fast to target Congress over washout of Budget Session

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with other top Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, his ministerial colleagues, and party MPs, observed a day-long fast on Thursday to protest the washout of the second phase of Parliament’s Budget Session, thus blaming the Opposition Congress for that.

While several leading ministers travelled to different parts of the country to observe the fast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and many other leaders kept to their work while fasting simultaneously.

BJP chief Amit Shah had joined his party colleagues in Karnataka to observe the fast and protest against the Congress’ disruptions in Parliament.

Amit Shah, while addressing a huge public gathering, said, “The Congress knew very well that they cannot debate in any of the Houses so they did not let the Parliament function. The BJP was left with no choice but to go to the people as it is the biggest forum for us.”

He slammed the Congress and its ideologies and said that the Opposition does not believe in democracy and had held it as ‘hostage’ in its own country. Shah claimed that the party does not have internal freedom and equality, and thus cannot save the country’s democracy.

The party’s Lok Sabha members mostly sat on the protest fast in their constituencies while most of the Rajya Sabha members carried it on in their states.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his interaction with the party leaders earlier, had asked them to ‘expose’ the opposition parties which had ‘throttled’ democracy by obstructing Parliament’s proceedings of the Budget Session.

Health Minister JP Nadda travelled to PM Modi’s Varanasi constituency, while Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad observed the fast in Patna, and Minister of State for Rural Development Minister Ram Kripal Yadav observed the fast in Digha, Bihar.

Nirmala Sitharaman, the Defence Minister, was in Chennai, while Prakash Javadekar was in Bengaluru. Union Minister Vijay Goel observed his fast in Tamil Nadu, while Agricultural Minister Radha Mohan Singh was in Motihari, Bihar, and Steel Minister Birender Singh was in Jind to observe his fast.

BJP General Secretaries Bhupender Yadav, Anil Jain, and Arun Singh observed their fast in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha respectively, while Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu was in the national capital to observe the fast.