'Rhetorical oration' no substitute for discussion in Parliament says CPI M on PM address

New Delhi, May 12 (PTI) Dubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the nation on Operation Sindoor a "rhetorical oration", CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby on Monday said it could not be a substitute to a structured discussion in Parliament.
    In a series of posts on X, the CPI(M) general secretary said Modi made no mention of the people killed in cross-border shelling, courage of Kashmiris and their role in helping the Pahalgam attack victims, as well as the trolling of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
    "In his rhetorical oration, the prime minister didn't find time to even mention those who were killed in cross-border shelling and about their families," Baby said.
    "The prime minister did not mention a word about the courage of the Kashmiri people, their selfless role in helping the victims of the terrorist attack or their unequivocal condemnation of the attack. The prime minister failed to condemn the hate campaign and defend even the foreign secretary, who was trolled for being the government's voice," he said.
    Democracy is not a one-way traffic, Baby said. "This oration cannot be a substitute for a structured discussion on the content of this statement in Parliament. The government remains answerable in a parliamentary democracy."
    In his first address to the nation after Operation Sindoor, the prime minister sternly warned Pakistan that India would not succumb to "nuclear blackmail" and sent a clear message to the world that terror and trade, terror and talks could not go together.
    He also said Operation Sindoor was the country's new policy against terrorism, and a new normal, and added India had only kept in abeyance its operations against Pakistan and the future would depend on its behaviour.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)