New Delhi: Launching a piercing attack on the Congress in Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday said that having “tasted blood” under the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, successive governments led by members of the Gandhi family brought a series of amendments in the Constitution, “undermining” its foundational principles.
Responding to the two-day discussion on the ‘Glorious journey of 75 years of the Constitution of India’, Modi, in a speech that lasted two hours, appealed to the country to guard against the “designs of the Congress” to introduce religion-based reservation in its “greed and hunger for power”, and reiterated his commitment to implement a “Secular Civil Code”.
From Nehru to Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, and, of course, Rahul Gandhi, Modi was unsparing in attacking generations of the family that has been the power centre of the Congress. The imposition of Emergency under Indira, and the excesses that followed, “is a sin that will forever be etched on the forehead of the Congress”, said the PM.
He drew a distinction between the constitutional amendments introduced by Congress regimes and the ones brought by the current dispensation since 2014. He listed the abrogation of Article 370 that stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, the rollout of GST, and the amendment of the Citizenship Act as necessities to “rectify the mistakes of the past” and make the country’s future brighter.
“One family of the Congress did not leave any stone unturned to undermine the Constitution. And I mention one family because out of the last 75 years, it controlled the country for 55 years. This family harboured harmful ideas, activities, policies and this tradition continues to this date. At every possible level, this family has challenged the constitutional principles and values,” Modi said.
Two members of the Gandhi family — Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Wayanad MP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — were present in the House as Modi’s broadside against them continued. Other Congress MPs protested some of the remarks made by the PM, who appeared to pay no attention to them.
After dedicating the first few minutes of his speech to extol the virtues and contributions of the makers of the Constitution, including the women members of the constituent assembly, Modi went on the offensive, claiming people with “perverted mindsets who cannot digest the country’s good” sought to exploit differences in the country’s diversity to their advantage.
The PM then sniped at Nehru, questioning the first constitutional amendment in 1951 under his watch that limited the scope of freedom of speech guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a). He added that Nehru did so despite the fact that he was yet to be elected to office as the first general election in independent India was held in 1952, in which the Congress registered a landslide victory.
Modi further claimed that Nehru even wrote letters to the then chief ministers of states, advising them that the Constitution must be amended if it comes in the way of achieving certain things. “It is then that the Congress tasted blood and it continued to land blows on the Constitution. Successive PMs nurtured the seed that Nehru had sown as they went to amend the Constitution 75 times.”
Under Indira, Modi said, the Constitution was first amended in 1971, referring to the 24th amendment that sought to overturn a Supreme Court ruling which had suggested that the Parliament could not restrict fundamental rights in any way. By doing so, he added, Indira paved the way for the curtailment of fundamental rights during the Emergency.
“Later, when a court held her election victory as invalid, she imposed Emergency out of anger and to save her chair. Under her, the concept of a committed judiciary took shape. She was so vindictive that Justice HR Khanna was overlooked despite his seniority when the turn to pick the next chief justice came,” Modi said.
‘Hunger and greed for power’
The PM referred to the overturning of the Supreme Court’s landmark Shah Bano judgment—which extended maintenance to aggrieved Muslim women—as another instance of the Gandhi family sacrificing constitutional principles for votebank politics. It was under Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister that the decision was taken through legislation.
“Instead of standing with a woman seeking justice, he stood with fundamentalists. It is because by then they had tasted blood,” Modi said. During the time of the UPA government, the formation of the “unelected and unconstitutional” National Advisory Council and “imposing it upon the prime minister’s office” flew from that same tradition of the “Gandhi family undermining the Constitution”, he added.
Next, he referred to Rahul Gandhi “tearing up” an ordinance brought by the UPA II government to shield convicted lawmakers from immediate disqualification. “And the government actually withdrew that ordinance. What kind of a system was that? They have toyed with the Constitution over decades and made it their habit. The Congress has relentlessly sought to diminish the dignity of the Constitution,” Modi said. In 2013, Rahul had said at a press conference that the ordinance should be “torn up and thrown away”.
The PM taunted the Congress, saying it never abided by its own party constitution. The fact that Nehru was picked to lead the country after independence over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel despite a majority of the Pradesh Congress committees voting in the latter’s favour was indicative of the Congress’s disavowal of constitutional and democratic values, Modi said.
Seeking to blunt the Congress’s offensive against the BJP on the question of the rights of Dalits and its caste census pitch, Modi said the Mandal Commission report recommending reservation for OBCs was implemented only when the Congress was dislodged from power. “Had the OBCs been granted reservation under the Congress, many occupants of high offices would have been OBCs today,” he said.
The PM claimed that the Congress wants to provide religion-based reservation, despite the constituent assembly concluding after long discussions that no such provision should be made for the sake of the country’s unity. “But the hunger and greed for power is making the Congress undertake such attempts”, he said, appealing to the people to stand against “such designs”.
This was among the “11 vows” that he asked people to take while winding up his speech. The others include zero tolerance against corruption, taking pride in the country’s heritage and shunning the “mindset of slavery”, women-led development, respect for the Constitution, and ridding the country of dynastic politics.
Modi invoked Babasaheb Ambedkar in making the case for a Uniform Civil Code in the country. Ambedkar, he said, had advocated the need for a UCC, moving away from the religion-based personal laws. “We are making efforts to come up with a Secular Civil Code. The Congress is opposing it because it does not suit its politics. It seeks to weaponise the Constitution for political gains.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also read: BJP, Opposition clash over Ambedkar’s legacy, spar over Nehru on day two of Constitution debate
