AMN
Congress president Sonia Gandhi Saturday launched another attack on the BJP-led Narendra Modi government saying voices of dissent were being stifled and ‘minorities were feeling threatened.’
At a function to give an award to late journalist Vinod Mehta posthumously, Gandhi said that bigotry and intolerance were rising. “In the present climate dissent is being stifled, the minorities feel increasingly insecure, the secular fabric of our society is threatened, bigotry and obscurantism seem to flourish unchecked,” she said.
The GK Reddy memorial national award for Vinod Mehta was received by his wife, Sumita Mehta.
The Congress president, who recently attacked the PM and the government in a rare intervention in Lok Sabha over the vacancies in key watchdogs like Central Information Commission (CIC), also spoke on freedom of the press on Saturday. “It’s a cornerstone of our democracy and without this freedom, all our other liberties would be threatened,” she said.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma were also present in the function. Manmohan Singh talks finance.
Manmohan Singh said that he would like the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to work in tandem, in a “harmonious relationship”. “RBI is a great institution and finance minister Arun Jaitley has already said that there is no disconnect between the two,” Singh said, pointing out that he had served both as RBI governor and finance minister.