A twitter jibe by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Sunday equating the new Parliament building with a ‘coffin’ elicited a sharp reaction from the BJP which said the social media post was “condemnable” and that a case of treason should be registered against the ruling party in Bihar for this.
“Yeh Kya hei [What is this]”, the RJD asked in the tweet posting a picture of the Parliament and a coffin side by side shortly before Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building. The RJD is among 19 parties which have boycotted the inauguration.
The BJP’s Bihar unit reacted by saying: “The first picture is your future and the second is of India. Understood?”
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Religio-cultural context
The new Parliament building is triangular in shape. Though primarily this is because the plot of land on which it is built is a triangle, experts say the shape also has symbolic significance in a religio-cultural context.
BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said the RJD tweet was “disgusting”. Another spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said the coffin belonged to the RJD and Parliament to the country.
“This is the level to which they have fallen. Disgusting. This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJD’s politics. Trikon or Tribhuj [triangles] has much significance in Indian system. By the way, the coffin is hexagonal or has six-sided polygon,” Mr. Poonawalla tweeted.
Mr. Bhatia said: “In 2024, the people of the country will bury you in this coffin and will not even give you a chance to enter the temple of new democracy. Let it also be decided that the coffin is yours and Parliament of the country”.
Former president of the BJP Bihar unit of the BJP, Sanjay Jaiswal released a video statement in which he said that this act of the ruling party was highly “condemnable and totally uncalled for”. “This has exposed their mindset that the RJD does have any regard for Parliament, the supreme law-making institution in the country….it shows that they don’t believe in parliamentary democracy”.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad too lashed out at calling it a “gross insult” to the temple of democracy and a “serious attack on public belief”.
