Modi opens India’s new parliament as opposition boycotts
28-May-2023Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a new parliament building in New Delhi in a grand ceremony boycotted by more than a dozen opposition parties.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a new parliament building in New Delhi in a grand ceremony boycotted by more than a dozen opposition parties.
Modi opened the new parliament house, which he called “a cradle of empowerment”, on Sunday (May 28) by offering prayers as Hindu priests chanted religious hymns at the start of the ceremony.
“The new parliament isn’t just a building; it is the symbol of the aspiration of the 140 crore [1.4 billion] people of India,” Modi said in an address after the inauguration, which comes a year before parliamentary elections in the world’s most populous nation and as Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks a third term in office.
“This new complex will be evidence of self-reliant India,” he said.
The new parliament building is part of plan by Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to revamp British colonial-era architecture, including the old parliament building, which will likely be converted into a museum.
Historian Mridula Mukherjee says the old parliament building is more Indian than the new one.
