New Delhi: The fight to stake a claim to B.R. Ambedkar’s legacy has moved from the Parliament to the streets, with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition parties, especially the Congress, scrambling to highlight their respective work with respect to furthering the Dalit icon’s philosophy.
The Congress, which has been aggressively raising the issue, has already been conducting protest marches against Union Home Minister Amit Shah for “insulting” Ambedkar, with a week-long campaign called the “Ambedkar Samman Saptah“.
The BJP has also pressed into action in states where the party is in power, asking all the chief ministers and deputy chief ministers to hold press conferences on the matter. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the Congress for insulting Ambedkar at one such press meet, leading the charge against the opposition party Tuesday.
A massive political row had erupted over Shah’s remarks on Dr Ambedkar during his address in the Rajya Sabha earlier this month. The Opposition had demanded an apology from him for allegedly insulting Ambedkar, with the Congress calling for his resignation.
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Congress’s plan of action
All India Congress Committee General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said that party MPs and leaders held press conferences at 150 locations across the country on 22 and 23 December and that workers will be holding protest marches on 24 December.
“Over the last week, the Congress party workers all over India have been on the ground participating in agitation. Today, all district committees are doing demonstrations and will be submitting a memorandum to the President of India through the district collectors, demanding the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah,” he said.
Venugopal added: “The BJP and Modi government have completely rejected the values of the Constitution. To oppose this, there’s a natural response from the ground, which we are witnessing. The country expects that the home minister will apologise, but they are consistently humiliating the legacy of Babasaheb Ambedkar. They are destroying the value of the Constitution, and undermining the electoral process.”
The Congress has also decided to hold ‘Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan’ public rally in Belagavi on 27 December, a day after an extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting.
The party has said that the “insult” to Ambedkar by Shah will be taken up at the Belagavi meet. “Congress party has been celebrating ‘Ambedkar Samman Week’ for the last 7 days. We have also held press conferences in more than 100 cities of the country regarding Amit Shah’s insult to Ambedkar ji,” said Jairam Ramesh, Member of Parliament and Congress’s general secretary in-charge, communications.
Ramesh added that Congress has demanded that Shah should be sacked and must apologise for his remarks. “The home minister should be dismissed from the cabinet. This is a historic meeting for us. A few years ago, a thinking camp was held in Udaipur, from which the decision of Bharat Jodo Yatra emerged. It is expected that some historic decisions will be taken in Belagavi also.”
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BJP’s response
Senior BJP leader and MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the BJP will “expose the Congress party’s full history of hateful attitudes towards Ambedkar through press conferences nationwide”.
“BJP’s respect for Babasaheb Ambedkar and Sardar Patel is well-known. Sardar Patel passed away in 1950, but he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna 42 years later, in 1991. Maulana Azad, who passed away in 1959, was also awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1992… Since Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel were opposed to Nehru, the Congress Party did not honour them, and the same attitude was extended to Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar,” said Prasad.
“This is the history of Rahul Gandhi’s family. Rahul Gandhi carries the legacy of the Congress party’s disrespect towards Babasaheb, and he should put an end to this drama.”
A senior BJP leader told ThePrint, “The Congress has already announced a series of events and as part of a counter strategy, the BJP has also decided that in BJP-ruled states, chief ministers and deputy chief ministers will address press conferences on the controversy and highlight how Congress has treated the great leader in the past.”
According to the leader, the party realises that the row is not likely to die down, keeping in view how the opposition parties have come together to corner the ruling party on the matter. “In the press conferences, the contribution made by the Modi government to uphold the legacy of Ambedkar, and how he has been given due respect during BJP’s tenure—whether it was under former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee or PM Modi—will be highlighted.”
The BJP is mindful of the fact that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were projected as a “fight to save the Constitution”, and that the “fake campaign” by the Opposition that the BJP would do away with reservation had played a role in the reduction of its tally to 241 seats.
“Rahul Gandhi travelled with his copy of the Constitution across the country during the poll rallies. This issue was addressed during the speeches in the Parliament session on the Constitution. The party wants to stop the Opposition from creating another false political narrative to target the pro-Dalit image of the BJP, which has worked the most for the community’s welfare,” explained a party leader.
Another party functionary said that past instances of “insult” meted out to Ambedkar by Congress will be highlighted during these press meets. BJP leaders have been claiming that Congress insulted Ambedkar while he was alive, and is now using edited footage for publicity.
“The way Congress has been using a small portion of Amit Shah’s recent speech in the Rajya Sabha out of context to establish its political identity is something we have to highlight. Party workers have been told to mention how the entire speech was different from what is being portrayed.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, Yogi spoke about how the BJP and the Uttar Pradesh government have been paying their respects to Ambedkar.
“Congress has a history of insulting Dalits and the underprivileged in the country. It has a history of trying to completely deprive Dalits and the underprivileged from their rights on the basis of appeasement. Congress brought the country to the brink of partition on the basis of appeasement… Jawaharlal Nehru did not want Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar to be a part of the Constituent Assembly…” he said.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a video statement Tuesday, “The Congress party should first apologise for editing the full statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and politicising it. They wasted Parliament’s time on the issue, and now they are going to the public with false claims.”
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