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May 13, 2012 16:18 IST

Reflecting on the journey of Parliament, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday said while its integrity and independence must be preserved at all cost, it must not only be a source of law and power but also justice and compassion.

Participating in a discussion in the Lok Sabha to celebrate the 60th year of the first sitting of Parliament in independent India, she also said that members' conduct must rise to the highest ethical standards.

Gandhi said the greatest triumph of the country in the last sixty years of its independence is that the "aam aadmi has become the heart and soul" of Indian democracy.

Noting that the journey of Indian Parliament has "not always been smooth or without challenge", Gandhi said an anniversary is also a moment of reflection to consider the members' role and place in the rich fabric of the nation's life and history.

"The integrity and independence of Parliament must be preserved and protected at all cost, with no room for compromise. Our conduct must rise to the highest ethical standards that were followed and demanded by the founding fathers of our nation," she said.

The Congress president urged the members to resolve to make sure that Parliament embraces "not only the triumphs and joys of this but rids our people of the sorrows and sufferings that still blight their lives. This great institution must be not only a source of law and power but also of justice and compassion.

Gandhi said the poor and illiterate masses have "again and again voted with wisdom, they have voted with purpose, sometimes reaffirming their faith in those who govern them, sometimes voting them out."

Noting that India's freedom struggle reinvented the idea of democracy, Gandhi said, "If there is one thread running through these past six decades, it is that people's power is felt constantly at the highest levels of governance."

She said Indian social legislations have emerged as a global benchmark today and the laws enacted in last sixty years have especially protected the excluded and the marginalised.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress president said, "My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest."