New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the Congress party has left no stone unturned in harming the Constitution and alleged that the party had amended it 75 times in six decades to remain in power.
Participating in the debate on 75 years of Constitution adoption in Lok Sabha, he said that on other hand, the NDA government made changes in the Constitution to “unite the country and to uplift the downtrodden and poor”.
The Prime Minister said that “the Congress attacked the Right to Free Speech… They (Congress) even made attempts to curb Right to Free Speech in the Constituent Assembly but their attempts were thwarted.”
“The next generation of Gandhi is also engaged in this process of tampering with the Constitution,” he claimed.
Continuing his criticism of the Congress party, Modi said that the seed that was planted by the first PM was taken care of by another PM — Indira Gandhi.
Disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision of 1971, she changed the Constitution to clip the wings of the judiciary to give complete power to the Parliament, he recalled.
Accusing the Congress for religion-based reservation, the PM said, “For the sake of hunger for power… to please its vote bank, Congress has played a new game of reservation on the basis of religion, which is against the spirit of the Constitution.”
He further said, “People obsessed with vote-bank politics, even played around with reservation which eventually led to SC, ST and OBC people being disadvantaged in this country. The Congress opposed the reservation initially, when Dr Ambedkar asked for it. They disregarded the Mandal Commission report. When the Congress government was removed, only then OBCs got reservation.”
In his speech, the Prime Minister also accused former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of abusing the Constitution and violating its principles when she imposed the National Emergency.
He said that the Emergency was imposed to prevent the judiciary from declaring her election “illegal”.
Modi said, “Misusing the Constitution and destroying its spirit has been a part of Congress’ DNA… For us, the Constitution, its purity and its integrity are of the greatest importance.”
UNI
