Most of the BJP’s NDA allies took the party’s line during the debate in Lok Sabha on 75 Years of the Constitution and attacked the Congress, accusing it of “murdering” the Constitution. The only exception was its biggest ally, TDP, which instead trained its guns on the YSRCP.
Union Minister Chirag Paswan’s LJP was the most vociferous in its attack on the Congress, with its first-time MP Shambhavi Choudhary, who belongs to the Dalit community, taking on the party on a range of issues, from George Soros to reservation.
Obliquely attacking the Congress on the Soros issue, Choudhary said that during the Narendra Modi Government, while the FDI inflow had increased, “for Congress, SDI had increased”.
“I will not elaborate what S stands for, or else there will be a ruckus. This is like muh mein Ram, bagal mein chhuri (a wolf in lamb’s clothing). But even that does not apply to them as they can’t even chant Jai Shree Ram. But they have repeatedly used the knife to murder the Constitution. That is why we say the Constitution should not be in the hands of a leader but in his heart,” she said.
Choudhary accused the Congress of disrespecting Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. “In the Central Hall in which the Constitution was discussed and debated… they did not even put up a picture of Ambedkar. Two of their prime ministers got Bharat Ratna, but they did not confer one on Ambedkar,” she said.
Choudhary alleged former Congress PMs Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had made statements against reservation. There were vociferous protests from the Opposition benches when she suggested that Indira had tried to scuttle the Mandal Commission report and that Rajiv had said he did not want the promotion of “idiots” in the name of reservation. “They used to think that through reservation, the country gets second-grade citizens,” Choudhary said.
Union Minister Bhupender Yadav criticised the Opposition for disrupting Choudhary’s speech, saying it did not suit senior members of the Opposition to heckle a young woman.
In her speech, TDP’s Dr Byreddy Shabari said the true essence of the Constitution could be found in “an autowallah becoming CM, a chaiwallah becoming the Prime Minister and a woman from the tribal community becoming the President of the country”.
However, she reserved all her criticism for the YSRCP, a non-INDIA bloc party it dethroned in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls earlier this year. Its tally down to just 10 from 151 seats in 2019, the YSRCP even lost the Opposition status in the state.
“If the Constitution is misused, what would be the position of the people of a state and how governments could collapse… one such example (of it) is YSRCP from 2019 to 2024. It was ruled by a dictator who was suffering from OCD i.e. obsessive criminal disorder. During the last five years, every single chapter of Constitution was misused in Andhra Pradesh…,” said Shabari.
JDU’s Rajiv Ranjan Singh said PM Narendra Modi’s slogan of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” was inspired by the Constitution and Modi was its “true protector”. “Those who destroyed the Constitution are today roaming around with a copy of the Constitution,” he said.
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