Chandigarh: Senior congress leader & Punjab’s Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Partap Singh Bajwa on Saturday has criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept of one nation one uniform for the cops.
Modi mooted the aforesaid idea during his video conference address to the chief ministers and home ministers of the states at the two day “chintan shivir” organized by the union government at Surajkund, Haryana.
Bajwa said the saffron party always wanted to paint the entire nation with the same brush. “ One nation one election, one nation one language, one nation one ration card and now one nation one uniform for the cops. It appears as if the BJP and its top leadership does not understand the true ethos and culture of India. It is the variety of states, people, communities, religions, languages, cultures, castes, traditions and conventions that constitutes this nation. So there can never be one or single parameter for the whole country”, added Bajwa.
Bajwa said even in developed countries such as the United States of America or Canada all provinces and states have their own police forces while at the national level these countries have federal forces. “ Since law and order is a state subject, let the states take their own call instead of the union government trying to remote control them from New Delhi. Our constitution says India is federal in form and unitary in spirit”, added Bajwa.
Bajwa said even the idea mooted by union home minister Amit Shah to have National Investigation Agency (NIA) offices in all states without taking them into confidence was a direct attack on the federal rights . The centre government should rather try to strengthen the state governments’ law enforcement agencies instead of attempting to weaken them.
Bajwa also said that many chief ministers and home ministers of the states were conspicuously absent from the congregation.
“ There has to be a strong reason for the chief ministers such as Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik, MK Stalin, Hament Soren and even Ashok Gehlot to stay away from the chintan shivir as they might not have been taken into confidence before the prime minister or the home minister mooted the aforesaid concepts.