New Delhi: The CPI(M) has claimed that the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi carrying a "Sengol" and leading a parade of religious men to install it in Parliament is "symbolism of a new India, which is a mimicking of a Hindu rashtra."
The Left Party's mouthpiece "People's Democracy" has published an editorial arguing that this practise is antithetical to democratic ideals.
The installation of the Sengol beside the speaker's chair on the morning of May 28—with Prime Minister Modi holding it and leading a parade of adheenaams (priests and heads of mutts)—was a public display emblematic of the new India, which aped a Hindu rashtra. A secular democratic republic would not support this, it argued.—Inputs from Agencies
