Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said Tuesday that though he was a jury member of Gandhi Peace Prize, he was kept in the dark about the decision to award 2021 Prize to the Gita Press, the publishing house which is associated with Hindu nationalism.
Chowdhury has claimed that he had not been informed about or invited to any meetings of the jury, The Indian Express reports. He said that he came to know about the award to Gita Press through media reports.
The Gandhi Peace Prize was instituted by the Union government in 1995. While the jury is chaired by the Prime Minister, its other members are the Chief Justice of India, Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the largest Opposition party in Lok Sabha (in this case Chowdhury), and two “eminent persons.”
Chowdhury told The Indian Express: “Before selecting the final nominee for the prestigious and outstanding award, there is a set norm and procedure whereby the leader of the largest Opposition party is invited and allowed to express his or her view. In this case, in spite of the fact that I happened to be a member of the jury, I was not invited. I was not even called over the phone to attend the meeting.”
“This is nothing but the sheer autocratic attitude of this government, which has been very much explicit and evident in all their actions and reactions,” he said.
“The practice in all other committees where I am a member, as a representative of the Opposition, is that they furnish some sort of documents so that I can express my views before a final decision is taken. They might have thought that this kind of awardee will never get any certificate of appreciation from the Opposition party,” he added.
“This is nothing short of trampling of Opposition voices… It is a tragedy for democracy. I got to know about the award through the media… rather by the grace of the media,” he said to the newspaper.
The Congress has criticised the Union government’s decision to award the Gandhi Peace Prize for 2021 to the Gita Press publishing house.
Describing the decision as a travesty, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh had likened the decision to awarding Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar and Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse.
