Discussing how a democracy should work in Singapore, the country’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on Tuesday, 15 February, during a Parliamentary session, invoked Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.
Starting with what actions the parliament should debate on, having received the report of the Committee of Privileges (CoP) on complaints about untruths spoken by the previous lawmaker of the Workers’ Party Raeesah Khan, he put forth three fundamental questions to discuss.
Delivering a speech in Singapore’s Parliament on February 15 on a report by the Committee of Privileges, which was looking into charges of lying by members of the country’s largest Opposition party, the Workers’ Party, Mr. Loong gave examples of the decline in political probity amongst elected politicians in India and Israel today, and even referred to the U.K.’s “partygate” scandal over official parties during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While Nehru’s India has become one where, according to media reports, almost half the MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal charges pending against them, including charges of rape and murder. Though it is also said that many of these allegations are politically motivated,” he said, adding that it was important to “prevent Singapore from going down the same road”.
The comments by the Singapore Prime Minister led to a rare controversy between the two countries that otherwise have friendly ties.
Earlier in the speech, Mr. Lee had praised India’s former Prime Minister, the late Jawaharlal Nehru, and Israel’s former PM, the late David Ben-Gurion, for helping their countries gain Independence, but added that subsequent generations of politicians had allowed moral values to “slide”.
Opposition leaders also weighed in on the issue. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “denigrates Nehru all the time inside and outside Parliament” while the Singapore PM had invoked PM Nehru “to argue how democracy should work during a parliamentary debate”.
