Adding ‘secular', ‘socialist' to Constitution was a blow to India's soul: Yogi
LUCKNOW Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday said inclusion of the words 'secular' and 'socialist' in the Preamble to the Constitution during the Emergency was 'a brutal assault on the soul of India'. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath during the event, marking 50 years since the imposition of the Emergency, at Lok Bhawan in Lucknow on Wednesday. (ANI Photo)
He said the Congress should apologise to Dalits, the marginalised, and the people of India for suppressing voices that BR Ambedkar had empowered through the Constitution.
'The Congress should apologise to Dalits, underprivileged people, and all citizens for the Emergency. The party had silenced the voices of those whom Babasaheb Ambedkar had empowered through his writings,' he said after inaugurating a seminar titled 'The Dark Chapter of Indian Democracy' at Lok Bhavan, marking 50 years since the declaration of Emergency.
'The sin committed by Congress and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975, to stay in power will never be forgotten. One family turned the dreams of freedom fighters into tools for their narrow political ambitions,' the CM added.
Adityanath said neither the Samajwadi Party nor the RJD had made any statement or social media post on 'Constitution Murder Day.' Senior leaders of these parties once opposed Congress for strangling the Constitution and protested against Congress' dictatorship. Today, those same leaders are bowing before the Congress for their interests,' he alleged.
'Dynastic parties like Congress, SP, and RJD have no right to talk about the Constitution because whenever they got a chance, they suppressed democracy,' he added.
Adityanath said the Congress didn't waste a moment in dismantling the Constitution Ambedkar drafted after immense personal sacrifice.
'On June 25, 1975, Congress took over the legislature, executive, and judiciary. Media was muzzled through censorship, and more than one lakh pro-democracy activists were jailed,' he added.
Recalling a slogan by revolutionaries — 'Tera Vaibhav Amar Rahe Maa, hum din char rahen na rahen' (May your glory live forever, Mother India, even if we live only a few days), he said the Congress shattered this resolve with its slogan, 'Meri satta bani rahe, chahe loktantra rahe na rahe' (let my power last, even if democracy doesn't)'.
The CM also pointed out that keeping Babasaheb Ambedkar away from Parliament in 1952, declaring the Emergency in 1975, the 1984 massacre of Sikhs and Rahul Gandhi tearing up an ordinance in 2013 were all 'anti-democratic acts'.
Earlier, Yogi Adityanath inaugurated an exhibition titled, 'Tragedy of the Emergency'.' During the programme, he honoured 26 democracy fighters.
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