Both the Biju Janata Dal and the YSRCP declared on Wednesday that they will be attending the official opening of the new parliament, which was to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The event has caused controversy, with numerous parties expressing their intention to boycott it.
Lenin Mohanty, a spokesman for the BJD, wrote a letter confirming the party’s MPs’ attendance at the inaugural ceremony. In the letter, Mohanty expressed the party’s belief that the parliament should always be protected since it represents democracy and is beyond politics. “BJD thinks that any problem that can compromise these constitutional institutions’ sanctity and honour should be above them. The august house can be used to discuss such matters, it stated. Currently, the party has 12 Lok Sabha members and 8 Rajya sabha members.
The YSRCP has also declared their attendance at the event. Since the state’s division in June 2014, the Centre had only recently authorised the largest-ever amount of funding for Andhra Pradesh. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has also mostly continued to subtly support the policies of the Centre, joining the opposition only on rare occasions.
On Sunday, the new parliament will be officially inaugurated. In a joint statement on Wednesday, 19 opposition parties—including the Congress and Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party—announced the boycott and referred to the inauguration as a “grave insult” and “direct assault” on democracy. They had indicated that it was an insult to the country that president Draupadi Murmu was not doing the inauguration.