Chennai, May 25 (IANS): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday lashed out against the political parties who were speaking highly of President Droupadi Murmu as an eminent leader from the tribal community, saying that they had run a bitter campaign against her before she was elected as the President.

The minister was speaking to reporters at Raj Bhavan here.

Sitharaman said that these political parties had earlier 'abused' Murmu and called her a ‘rubber stamp'.

She said that these parties had even said that President Murmu represented ‘evil forces'. Sitharaman said that by the words ‘evil forces', the opposition parties meant the RSS.

Sitharaman stated that the present Central government gives high respect to the President and added that the opposition parties had not said anything to honour the President.

Sitharaman said that it was Congress leader Sonia Gandhi who had inaugurated the Chhattisgarh assembly building and asked in what capacity she had done so. Going by the logic the opposition was presenting now against the inauguration of the new parliament building by the Prime Minister, it should have been the Governor who should have inaugurated the Chhattisgarh assembly building.

She said that Parliament was the Temple of Democracy and reminisced about Prime Minister Narendra Modi paying his respects by touching the ground with his forehead before entering Parliament in 2004.

She said that in her humble opinion it was not right for the opposition to boycott the inauguration of the new parliament building and appealed to the opposition parties to reconsider their boycott decision.

Sitharaman said that it was a matter of pride for Tamil Nadu to have the sceptre presented by the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of Independence to be installed in the new Lok Sabha.