Congress raps Modi government on ordinance, other issues

The Congress Tuesday strongly criticised the Narendra Modi government for taking the ordinance route and bypassing parliament on all crucial matters.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, whose message was read out to press persons, right after a four-hour-long Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting here, said: "The BJP government has already promulgated 10 ordinances in seven months alone, which roughly translates to one ordinance every 28 days. It's not just frequency of ordinances, we should take cognizance of, but also context, nature and timing (of these ordinances)."

Party spokesman Janardan Dwivedi read out the message, while addressing a press conference.

"...Modi government is not serving national interest by-passing parliamentary debates. We need to question the extra ordinary urgency to introduce some these (ordinances). Is there any ulterior motive behind this," she asked in the message.

The Congress also criticised the government for destroying the Land Acquisition Act.

"The Land Acquisition Act came into effect after wide ranging talks and consultations but this government has effectively destroyed this land mark legislation and brought back the law passed by the British in 1894 through the back door," the message said.

Earlier, party leader Ambika Soni said after the meeting that discussion on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's prospective elevation to the party's presidency was not on the agenda of the meeting this time.

"Rahul Gandhi is our vice president and he is playing a very prominent role (in the party). He is also guiding from upfront on many organisation matters."

"But today (Tuesday), we spoke on the agenda connected with organisation matter only," she said.