Constitution Day BJP’s Attempt to Rewrite History: Ghulam Nabi Azad

Ending two days of discussions in parliament on the 125th birth anniversary of Ambedkar, widely seen as the architect of the constitution, Modi reached out to the opposition while underlining the diverse nature of the country. “They are the leaders of the nation”, said Azad.

The spirit of this (Constitution) debate is not “you” or “I”, it is “We”.

Taking a jibe at the RSS-BJP, he said there were a lot of people belonging to “a parivar” who did not agree with the Constitution and “it is good if they also show their commitment. It was the discipline of the Congress party that enabled the Drafting Committee to give full information about every Act in the Constitution”. “Do you have objection?”

Gandhi said Ambedkar plunged himself in the freedom struggle for the cause of the scheduled castes and the oppressed after his education overseas in political theory and economy. There were more learned and better people than me in the Committee.

Marking November 26 as Constitution Day is not to undermine January 26 (Republic Day).

There could not have been a better decision than keeping him in the drafting committee and making him its chairman, she quoted Rajendra Prasad as saying.

With the BJP-led government raking up a controversy over the “misuse of the word secular” and its insertion into the Preamble of the Constitution through an amendment, leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday set off a few heated exchanges when he warned against any attempt to review the constitutional scheme. “The Congress leader also was referring to BJP’s appropriation of Sardar Ballabhbhai Patel or BSP’s diplay of kinship with B R Ambedkar, without naming them, but saying that “I don’t understand why leaders are aportioned among parties”, when it was Nehru who appointed Ambedkar as the chairman… and Patel was a Congress leader and home minister in Nehru’s cabinet”. Azad was a prominent member of five of these committees. He said the Leader of the House talks of the Constitution but doesn’t mention Pandit Nehru’s contribution.

The history of the Constitution is very old and linked to the country’s freedom struggle and that it why it is interlinked with the Congress.

She recalled that Nehru, at the Karachi session of the Congress in 1931, had brought in a resolution on fundamental rights and economic policy which was later adopted.

Hailing the greatness of the Constitution, she said that it happens very rarely in the world that a galaxy of stalwarts work in unison to produce a document of such magnitude.

Accusing the Narendra Modi government of “manufacturing” intolerance, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad yesterday said that “intolerance grows from the top and percolates down to the states”.