“How is it possible that you talk about Constitution and not mention its objectives and the contribution of India’s first Prime Minister of Jawaharlal Nehru?”.
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The Congress chief said: “It was the Congress which brought Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly, recognising his unique talent and capability”.
The Home Minister said it was hard to maintain social harmony because of the “rampant misuse” of the word secularism.
The Congress, which has been accusing the BJP of playing communal politics, is set to make a big noise over the issue of rising intolerance during the winter session which opened on Thursday.
Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said political parties must reach a conclusion on the long-pending women’s reservation bill and attacked the Congress over the alleged remarks of its leaders.
“Dignity for Indians and unity for India…this is what our Constitution is about”, said the prime minister who was the last one to speak on the issue.
“Whatever we have seen for the past few months, it is against the values of the Constitution. It is what the constitution gave us that our society had the power to fight even when there were incidents that threatened democracy, it, in fact, strengthened democracy”, Jaitley argued.
“Ideals and principles that are embedded in our Constitution and have inspired us for decades, are under assault today”, she said. “They are being intentionally attacked”.
“Our Constitution is our inspiration. We have to empower people from all sections, be it any community, region or language”.
Earlier, Prime Minsiter Modi had said in Lok Sabha that government’s only religion is “India first” and the only holy book the government follows is the Constitution of India.
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, however, ruled there was nothing objectionable. There were cries of “Emergency, Emergency” when she quoted Ambedkar as having said: “No matter how good a Constitution is, if the people implementing it are bad, it will prove to be bad”.
Modi said that no praise is enough for the people who created our Constitution, and added that Dr. Ambedkar’s contributions can never be denied.
“Ambedkar’s role in framing the constitution can not be ignored, but there are others too who worked and contributed to it”. The BJP government has chose to observe November 26 as Constitution Day to spread awareness about the constitution and its architect B R Ambedkar.
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The importance of the discussion could be gauged from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat through the proceedings from the beginning till the day’s end at 7 p.m.
