New Delhi : The Congress on Monday unleashed a scathing attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), accusing it of being hell bent on changing the Constitution of India. In a video released on microblogging site Twitter, the Congress claimed quoted several RSS ideologues on their opinion about the Constitution.
The video starts with Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde saying that the BJP has come to power to amend the Constitution. This statement by Hegde had sparked a huge war of words between the Congress and BJP. He had said, “Seculars do not know what their blood is. Yes constitution has given that right to say ‘we are secular and we will say it’. Yes, I know but constitution has been amended many times, we will also amend it. We have come to power for that.”
According to the Congress, Hegde is just following the legacy of RSS. And to assert the point, the video further quotes RSS ideologue Golwalkar as saying, “There is no Indian percepts or political philosophy in the Indian Constitution”.
The video also carries a quote by Jansangh founder Deendayal Upadhyay on the issue of the word “secular” in Constitution. According to the quote, the Jansangh founder had said, “By declaring Bharat as secular nation, the soul of Bharat has been attacked. A secular state is full of woes.”
The opposition party has, in the video, also talked about the Venkatchaliah Commission, constituted by then NDA government in 2000 to review the Constitution. The commission had faced widespread protests from different sections of the society, says the Congress.
It also raked up a 2015 advertisement carrying Preamble of the Constitution by the BJP wherein words “secular” and “socialists” were missing.
Another highlight of the video is a quote by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wherein he says that no system can be secular and that those “who gave birth to this word and who use it should apologise”. “I believe that after Independence, the biggest lie in India is the word secular,” Yogi is quoted as saying.
“BJP is uncomfortable with many parts of the Constitution” such as socialist, secular, Article 25 (Right to Freedom of Religion), Article 30 (Right of minorities to set up educational institutions) and Article 370 on Jammu and Kashmir, alleges the Congress in the video. It further points that these “mostly constitute the basic structure of our Constitution”.
There has been no reaction from the BJP on the video so far.
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