New Delhi: Tearing into the Congress for trying to “hijack” the Constitution and make it serve “political interests”, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said Friday that the government will never allow “the basic character of the Constitution to be changed”.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the adoption of India’s Constitution, Singh said, “No matter how hard Congress tries, we will never allow the basic character of the Constitution to be changed. You see the history. We had strongly opposed every attempt to hurt the basic character of the Constitution even during the dark days of the Emergency.”
Slamming the Opposition, he said that the same party which had misused the Constitution in the past is today talking about carrying out a census on the basis of caste. The minister added that while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has “no objection” to it, it does not want to cheat the public, but wants to look them straight in the eye.
“Come up with a blueprint where it is crystal clear which caste will get how much reservation and the percentage of the reservation. We have no objection to even having a discussion in the Parliament,” he said.
The Opposition has been demanding a caste census since before the Lok Sabha elections.
The senior BJP leader listed a series of instances from the past, when Congress leaders, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, made several amendments to the Constitution in a bid to change it. Taking a dig at Congress leader and leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Singh said that many leaders nowadays carry the Constitution in their pockets.
“They have learnt this since childhood. They have seen the Constitution being kept in their pockets for generations in their families,” Singh remarked.
“BJP Constitution ko sir maathe par lagati hai (BJP respects the Constitution),” he added.
The Opposition has been critical of the BJP for trying to change the Constitution, and in its campaign for this year’s Lok Sabha elections, it had raised this issue forcefully. Denying the charge, Defence Minister Singh said that it was, in fact, the Congress that made the most number of amendments to the Constitution. “The attempt to change the Samvidhan (Constitution) was to silence the critics”.
He said attempts have been made to project the Constitution as a contribution of a particular party in the last few years.
“In the last few years, attempts have been made to project the Constitution as a result of the contributions of a particular party. The contributions of several leaders were deliberately ignored,” he said, as he highlighted how thoughts of several leaders, like Madan Mohan Malviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, Veer Savarkar and Bhagat Singh, have strengthened the Constitution.
Singh said that a close look at the history of independent India shows how Congress not just amended the Constitution, but also tried to “gradually change the Constitution with malicious intent”.
Jawaharlal Nehru carried out 17 amendments to the Constitution, Indira Gandhi made 28, Rajiv Gandhi made 10 and Manmohan Singh seven, he said.
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‘BJP took great pains to protect Constitution’
The BJP has been under constant attack from the Opposition for allegedly misusing the institutions, a charge Singh denied in his speech. “We have never played with the ‘independence’ and ‘autonomy’ of any institution…The values of the Constitution, the path shown by it, the principles of the Constitution are visible everywhere… in our minds, words and deeds,” he said.
Unlike the Congress, Singh said, the BJP never treated the Constitution as a “means to serve political interests”, but has taken “great pains to protect it”.
Slamming the Congress for insulting the “Samvidhan” for years, Singh cited the example of Emergency and said that the party does not have any right to “lecture us on the Constitution”.
The Union minister also said that the Constitution talked about religious freedom and it had been specified that the State would not have a religion but be secular. “This was stated by those who were dubbed communal by people of the Congress,” he said.
A large part of Singh’s speech saw him charging at the Congress for disrespecting the Constitution. The defence minister accused Congress leaders of always placing “personal interest” above “Constitutional values and institutional dignity”.
In 1950, the “wrong policies” of the Congress government were being criticised in the press, the minister said. “In such a situation, the then Congress government banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s weekly publication ‘Organiser’ and the magazine ‘Crossroads’ published from Madras. The government’s order was challenged in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court quashed the Censorship order and declared the government’s decision unconstitutional.”
He added, “Instead of respecting the order of the Supreme Court, Congress crushed the Freedom of Speech and Expression of the citizens by making a constitutional amendment in 1951 itself… It had no mandate.”
The minister recalled how senior BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as the leader of opposition in 1994, had led an official delegation to a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council and put forward India’s position on the Kashmir issue forcefully, while lauding the Indian government.
“Unhone wapsi pe government ka virodh bhi kiya tha. Kayi leaders videsh ki dharti pe na jaane kya kya kehte hai (he also slammed the government upon return. Some leaders make all kinds of remarks on foreign land),” Singh said in a veiled attack on Rahul Gandhi.
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