New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday asserted that the RSS and BJP hate the Constitution as it has kept their “idea of Hindu Rashtra at bay”.
“Modi ji says he wants a Congress-mukt Bharat but what he really means is that he wants a constitution-mukt Bharat. Constitution guarantees that India will be a secular, democratic republic and it has kept the idea of a Hindu rashtra at bay for almost seven decades,” K. Raju, Chairman of the Scheduled Castes Department of the Congress party, told a press conference here.
Raju noted that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have a visceral hatred of the Congress Party’s ideology which was subsequently enshrined in India’s Constitution.
Taking pot shots at RSS ideologue Ram Bahadur Rai’s statement on B.R. Ambedkar, Raju said, “Rai’s statements proves how regressive the BJP-RSS are to the multi-cultural integrity of India.”
Rai had said that Ambedkar’s only contribution in making the Constitution was that he corrected the spellings and grammatical errors of the draft.
Rai, a former General Secretary of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of RSS, was appointed chief of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts by the Modi government recently.
Taking strong objection to Rai’s comments, Congress demanded his resignation from the government funded institution.
“We will organize nation-wide protests on the issue. Modi ji must suspend Rai from the organization and BJP President Amit Shah must apologize for these remarks,” Raju said, insisting BJP has always connived to snatch from Dalits their basic rights.
He also accused BJP of turning universities into caste panchayats.
“They clamped down on the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle at IIT Madras as students from this centre were propagating the principles of rationalism, dignity and Dalit rights. Modi ji’s ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya forced Rohit Vemula to commit suicide,” Raju said.
He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of following former RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar’s divisive politics, “that had opposed equal rights being given to Dalits and minorities.”
–IANS