Tharoor hails Priyanka Gandhi's maiden speech in Parliament

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday hailed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's maiden speech in Parliament, saying she did not speak like a first-time MP and rightly pointed out to the government that it should talk about current times rather than harping on the past.

In her maiden speech in the Lok Sabha as an MP, Congress general secretary Gandhi said had it not been for the Lok Sabha election results, in which the BJP scraped through to victory, the government would have started work on changing the Constitution.

Participating in a debate on the Constitution in the Lok Sabha, she said the Constitution was a protective shield of justice, unity and freedom of expression but the government made every effort to break it during the past 10 years.

Asked about her speech, Tharoor told reporters, “I think it was an excellent maiden speech. She did not speak like a first-time parliamentarian who, as she said, has had only 15 days in Parliament. She spoke with tremendous maturity, tremendous grace and tremendous intelligence. I was very impressed.”

“The difficulty in speaking for the first time is whether you should show passion or shout or whether you come across in a sensible, dignified and rational way. I think she was right to choose the latter,” the former Union minister said.

Tharoor said since Union Minister Rajnath Singh had made a very strong speech attacking the history of the Congress, Gandhi very rightly pointed out that “when will you talk about today, why should you talk about yesterday”.

“It was very effective and she made all points, all key issues that we have seen and trouble us in the country that the way in which the Constitution has been working. She has done a wonderful job,” he said.