RSS Leader Calls For Debate On Words "Socialist", "Secular" In Preamble
New Delhi:
Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of the BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, today said the fate of two words in the preamble of the constitution - "Socialist" and "Secular" -- should be decided through debate.
"During Emergency, two words Secular and Socialist were added to the Constitution, which were not part of the original Preamble," Mr Hosabale said at an event organised on 50 years of the Emergency.
"Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not, debate must happen on this. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar's Constitution. During Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added."
On the occasion, he also took a jibe at the Congress, and without naming him, its senior leader Rahul Gandhi.
"The people who did this (imposed Emergency) are roaming around with copies of the Constitution today. They have, to date, not apologised to the people of India for this," he said.
"You put more than 1 lakh people in jail, kept more than 250 journalists in jail, violated fundamental rights, and forced 60 lakh Indians to undergo sterilisation... You ended the independence of judiciary. Have all the people who did this apologised to the country? If it was not you but your ancestors, then you have to apologise in their name," he added.
The BJP's move to name the 50th anniversary of Emergency -- - imposed by the government of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 -- as the "Samvidhan Hatya Divas (Murder of Constitution Day)", has opened a new front with the Congress.
The two parties have been again at loggerheads since yesterday, with leaders from JP Nadda to Union home minister Amit Shah ripping into the Congress.
The Congress has responded sharply in face of the concerted BJP attack .
"Those who never contributed to the freedom struggle or constitution-making are now claiming to defend it," said party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
"PM Modi is repeatedly invoking a period that the country has moved past. He is making an issue out of something that people have already forgotten," he had added.
Apart from BJP-backed programmes in various states, the Union Cabinet adopted a resolution to honour the sacrifices of those who resisted Emergency. The ministers also observed two-minute silence against the excesses committed back then.
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