Entire oppn with govt after Pahalgam attack: Rahul in Rae Bareli
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the entire opposition was supporting the measures being taken by the government in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.
'There was a terror attack in Pahalgam a few days ago. You must have heard of the same. We have made it clear to the government that the entire opposition is with you. Take whatever action you want to,' Gandhi said while addressing booth level workers of the party at Dalmau in Rae Bareli on Tuesday.
Also, Gandhi, who's the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that the incident had outraged every Indian. He demanded that a special session of parliament be convened at the earliest to discuss the terror attack and demonstrate a collective resolve.
At Dalmau, he said the Congress was undergoing a revamp to ensure that the party's government was formed at the Centre and the way to do so went via Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. 'We want to bring about a change and give voice to the poor... We need to get our party strengthened in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. We will form a strong government of INDIA bloc in Bihar and then in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP will be voted out in the next election and INDIA bloc will form the government in Uttar Pradesh.'
'Har Ghar Jal a failure in Rae Bareli'
The Rae Bareli MP appeared on a mission as he questioned officials about the implementation of several central schemes in his constituency.
Besides questioning the implementation of Rae Bareli Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushal Yojana there, he also asked officials concerned to form a team with public representatives and check the implementation of Har Ghar Jal scheme in his constituency.
He asked the officials to get a reality check done on those who were given skill training and then a job, and stated that the scheme was not benefiting the people.
'This scheme has failed completely. We got a survey conducted of 25 of those given skill training under the scheme. Out of them, only three have got placement,' said Gandhi while presiding over a meeting of District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DISHA) at Bachat Bhawan here, according to some members who attended the meeting.
Some BJP representatives, present in the meeting, opposed the observations that the scheme was a failure and said some vendors might be responsible for lapses and action may be taken against such vendors. A district officer said: 'We have requested the Rae Bareli MP to provide us the details of the survey conducted by him.'
Those aware of the development said the district officials had claimed that nearly 1,100 beneficiaries imparted training in several skills had been placed.
Gandhi also asked the officers to check the implementation of Har Ghar Jal scheme, which aims to provide piped water to households under the Jal Jivan Mission. He said he got nearly 180 piped water supply connections checked in Rae Bareli and many of them have been verified. He said the district officials should work out a visit of UP Jal Nigam officials and public representatives for joint inspection.
He questioned the district administration over Union minister Nitin Gadkari's announcement on March 2 last year about the four-laning of the Rae Bareli-Lalganj Road and the proposed construction of a bypass between Lalganj and Bachhrawan in Rae Bareli. A member who attended the meeting said the officers had no response.
Gandhi asked the officers to check whether the '181' women's helpline was responsive, So, an officer dialed the number to verify and handed over the phone to Gandhi there. Those aware of the development said the helpline did not work the last time when Gandhi presided over the meeting of DISHA in 2024.
Uttar Pradesh minister of state (Independent charge) for horticulture and agriculture marketing Dinesh Singh and Amethi MP KL Sharma also had some arguments over the agenda of the meeting with the minister claiming that some of the items had been incorporated therein in violation of the guidelines of Union ministry of rural development.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi unveiled a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at Civil Lines and inaugurated a solar roof plant and a charging station in his constituency. He also visited the Rail Coach factory in Lalganj area.
On Wednesday, the MP is scheduled to visit Amethi, which he won in 2004, 2009 and 2014 but lost in 2019, and inaugurate an open-heart surgery operation theatre at Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Munshiganj there. He is likely to pay a visit to Indira Gandhi Nursing College at Munshiganj. He will visit the ordnance factory project at Korwa in Amethi. The ordnance factory produces AK-203 assault rifles, a Kalashnikov variant, as part of Indo-Russian joint venture. He is likely to make a brief stop in Kanpur where he will meet the family of Shubham Dwivedi, who was one of the tourists killed in Pahalgam by terrorists on April 22.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
8 minutes ago
- India Today
Maharashtra withdraws 3-language policy order amid Hindi 'imposition' backlash
Facing backlash, the Maharashtra government on Sunday cancelled its amended government resolution (GR) on the three-language policy and announced the formation of a new committee to review and implement the policy Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the decision was taken during the state cabinet meeting amid widespread opposition to the government's decision to introduce Hindi as a third language in primary schools."In cabinet today, we have decided that on the three-language policy and how it should be implemented, a committee under Dr Narendra Jadhav will be formed. The three-language policy will be implemented after the report of this committee," Fadnavis told reporters.'Therefore, we are cancelling both GRs on the three-language policy. This committee will consult stakeholders. For us, the centre point is Marathi,' he added.A controversy erupted after the Mahayuti government issued a GR in April stating that Hindi would be the default third language from Classes 1 to 5 in Marathi and English-medium schools. The move was part of the phased rollout of the Centre's National Education Policy 2020 at the primary school was an immediate outcry from political, social and cultural groups. Fadnavis bowed to the pressure and said that Hindi would not, after all, be mandatory and students could opt for any other regional language. Earlier this month, a modified order said that Hindi would "generally" be taught as the third language to amended order, however, came with a rider: if at least 20 students in a class wanted to opt for another Indian language instead of Hindi, the school would make arrangements to appoint a teacher or offer the subject criticism continued, with opposition parties and literary activists accusing the state government of promoting Hindi at the cost of regional languages. The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) spearheaded protests against the policy and appealed to Marathi-speaking people to come out on the streets and voice their opposition.- Ends advertisement
The Hindu
9 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Congress wants the people to forget about the Emergency: Pralhad Joshi
The Congress party wants the people to forget about the 1975 Emergency and is misleading the people by saying that the nation is facing an undeclared emergency now, Union Consumer Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said here on Sunday. Mr. Joshi was addressing a seminar organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here as part of a nationwide campaign organised in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Emergency. 'After such a long gap, they want the people to forget about the Emergency. But in the interests of democracy and the country, the people should not be allowed to forget it,' he said. According to him, the credit for putting up a strong fight against the Emergency went to the Jan Sangh, RSS and the ABVP. The Communist parties did not put up a fight. Neither the Congress nor the Congress has shown 'an iota' of respect to B.R. Ambedkar, who chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution. The BJP campaign is designed to make the people more vigilant and to make sure that the Constitution is not tampered with again, Mr. Joshi said. Almost 50% of the Constitution was changed within the 21 months of the Emergency. Even today, the Congress, which was responsible for the Emergency and continues to pursue dynastic politics, is not democratic. The Emergency was never a Constitutional necessity, but a political conspiracy deisgned to keep Indira Gandhi in power, he said. Mr. Joshi also sought to counter Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's remark that V.D. Savarkar was responsible for the Lok Sabha poll defeat of B.R. Ambedkar. Jawaharlal Nehru had visited the constituency twice to campaign for Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, who defeated Ambedkar, he said. BJP State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, senior BJP leaders V. Muraleedharan and P.K. Krishnadas, Minority Morcha national vice president Abdul Salam were among those present. Mr. Joshi also released the book 'Emergency Diaries - Years that Forged a Leader ' at the function by handing over a copy to Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
The Wire
10 minutes ago
- The Wire
RSS Leader Hosabale's Call to Omit ‘Socialist', ‘Secular' from Preamble is an Attack on Constitution Itself
The statement by Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that a decision must be made to remove the words "socialist" and "secular" from the preamble of the constitution after a debate constitutes an attack on the Indian constitution – something which RSS and BJP find difficult to accept. They have expressed their intent, from time to time, to review it or change in toto. However, Hosabale advanced an absurd argument that it was during the Emergency period of 1975-1977, that the two words were added to the original preamble and that the Constitution drafted by Ambedkar on November 26, 1949, never contained those words. Vice president Jagdeep Dhankar and Union ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jitender Singh have also joined the call for removal of the two words from the preamble. Clearly, such a concerted move expresses their intent to assail the constitution which BJP and RSS has recurrently done. What BJP's constitution says Article II of the BJP's 2012 Constitution, dealing with its objective, states: 'The Party shall bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.' So, it is rather strange that the RSS and BJP leaders, who accept the above provision, are demanding the removal of the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the constitution. Supreme Court's validation of the words 'secular' and 'socialist' On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the constitution on November 25, 2024, the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the inclusion of the words 'socialist' and 'secular' in the preamble and held that the addition of these terms could not be invalidated merely on the ground that the preamble in the original form did not contain them at the time of the adoption of the constitution. The apex court upheld the constitutional validity of the insertions of those words after a prolonged and detailed hearing based on arguments of the petitioners who challenged such insertions and the written and oral counters filed against them. Therefore, Hosabale's call for debate to decide the fate of the two words in the preamble is a call to reject the Supreme Court's judgement. 'Secular' mentioned in fundamental rights Notably, part of Hosabale's argument that the word 'secular' was not there in Ambedkar's constitution is also false. His argument collapses when seen in the context of one of the fundamental rights enshrined in Article 25, dealing with the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. In this very article, the word 'secular' is mentioned under clause (2)(a). If he has no trouble with the word 'secular' in the chapter on fundamental rights and he only wants a debate on the word 'secular' enshrined in the preamble, he should also turn to Union home minister Amit Shah who displayed his intense love for the word 'secularism' in the preamble during the Lok Sabha election campaign in 2024. Shah had faced country-wide concerns arising out of strident claims of some BJP MP candidates contesting the elections that the constitution would be changed if the party won 400-plus seats. The concerns around this gained huge traction and Shah could sense that BJP would confront massive electoral loss for such a boastful claim. Amit Shah's new found love for the word 'secular' The entire BJP leadership and cadre was banking on the firm articulations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, that ' Ram is Rashtra ' (Lord Ram is the State) and ' Dev is Desh ' (A Hindu deity is the country) for winning 400 plus Lok Sabha seats. Those articulations were certainly contrary to the constitutional vision of India and Indian State, which is deeply rooted in secularism, held by the Supreme Court as the basic structure of the constitution. Amit Shah was shaken by the mood of the electorate shaped by the opposition parties that by securing a huge majority in the parliament, the BJP would alter the entire constitution. So, he denied the removal of the word on more than one occasion in his election campaign speeches. He desperately tried to negate the campaign that BJP would change the constitution and categorically said that the word 'secular' in the preamble would not even be touched. So, what prompted Dattatreya Hosabale to generate a debate on the words 'secular' and 'socialist' in the preamble to create a public opinion for their eventual deletion? The only possible answer can be found in RSS and BJP's visceral hatred for the Constitution itself. Indira Gandhi's farsighted vision Insertions of the two words in the preamble of the constitution during the Emergency of 1975 testified to the vision of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to protect the constitution itself from those forces who were mobilised by RSS against her under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan. Harish Khare in his article, 'The Emergency's True Legacy: How JP's Naivety Empowered the RSS', writes, 'Thanks to JP, the RSS, the very organisation that created the eco-system for Nathuram Godse to fire those fatal shots at the Mahatma, has worked its way to a 'respectable' place in our national imagination. Not just respect, it now has clout, patronage and veto power in our national affairs.' Intent of Constituent Assembly on secularism All members in the Constituent Assembly worked for establishing the Indian State anchored in secularism. Two exemplary statements to that effect are quoted here to flag the legislative intent of the assembly. RSS and BJP, while vainly appropriating Sardar Patel as their icon, should be mindful of his sensible words uttered in the Constituent Assembly on October 14, 1949: "I made it clear that this Constitution of India, of free India, of a secular State will not hereafter be disfigured by any provision on a communal basis." Another eminent member of the Assembly, T.J.M. Wilson outlined the importance of the secular state on November 23, 1949, and flagged the escalating dangers to it. "The greatest achievement, however, of our Constitution," he said, "is its secular character, and the secular State that emerges therefrom". He added, "We have achieved this secular character of the State and we have provided for it in the Constitution." He cautioned, "But the clouds are gathering and are threatening to darken the secular character of the State and obliterate it". "I only pray and trust," he affirmed, "that the progressive forces of this country, under the guidance and leadership of our great and beloved Prime Minister(Jawaharlal Nehru) will clear away those clouds and shall not allow our country to pass once again through that destruction and misery which most of the nations of Europe and Asia had to pass before they could accomplish this great achievement of a secular State." That legacy of the Constituent Assembly and Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi constitute a categorical imperative to save the constitution and secularism. S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.
