Amid Congress attack that the BJP would change the Constitution and scrap reservations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted that he would not let the quotas of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs be given to Muslims on the basis of religion.
Training his guns on the Congress, he accused the grand old party of making undivided Andhra Pradesh a “laboratory of appeasement” when it was in power in 2004 and 2009, by giving reservation of BCs to Muslims and also of harbouring “hatred” towards the Constitution since its birth.
Addressing an election rally in Zaheerabad Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana, he said, “As long as Modi is alive, I will not let reservations of Dalits, Adivasis, OBC to be given to Muslims on the basis of religion.”
When Congress won a record number of MPs and MLAs in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2004 and 2009, it gave the reservation of BCs to Muslims, he claimed.
While 26 castes in Telangana have been seeking OBC status for a long time, the Congress did not approve of that but categorised Muslims as OBC ”overnight”, he said.
The Congress had started insulting the Constitution from “day one” when it removed drawings of Ramayan and Mahabharat on the Constitution given by B R Ambedkar, he said.
In a veiled reference to Rahul Gandhi, the PM said the “grandmother of shehzada” (former PM Indira Gandhi) crushed the Constitution and imposed emergency in the country and jailed lakhs of people in the country.
The first Prime Minister (Jawaharlal Nehru) insulted the Constitution and the second big insult was from “his grandmother” (Indira Gandhi), he alleged.
The father of ’shehzada’ (a reference to former PM Rajiv Gandhi) brought a law to scare the newspapers in the country which was opposed by BJP and the media and the move had to be halted, he said.
Recalling that ’shehzada’ (Rahul Gandhi) tore off copies of an ordinance brought out by the then UPA government in 2013 in a press conference, he sought to know how the former could talk about safeguarding the Constitution.
The ordinance of the Manmohan Singh government was a decision of the then cabinet which is formed by the Constitution, he said.
The constituent Assembly had decided that there will be no reservation based on religion in the country and that quotas were meant for Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs, he added.
In an apparent reference to Rahul Gandhi, he alleged that an attempt is being made to provide quotas through the backdoor “dishonestly’ on the basis of religion to strengthen vote bank.
Describing the Constitution as a ’dharm grandh’ (spiritual text) for him to run the government, he recalled that he had bowed while entering into Parliament in 2014 after assuming power.
The “royal family” of Congress was not ready to accept even the party’s Constitution and Sitaram Kesri, who was Congress president then, was “locked in a bathroom” and “thrown on the footpath” and the “royal family” occupied the Congress party regardless of the party constitution, he charged.
With inputs from News18
