Row After Top BJP Leaders Support Preamble Review

A day after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader, Dattatreya Hosabale, called for "reviewing" the insertion of the words "secular and socialist" in the Preamble of the Constitution, Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday argued that these words did not reflect India's core cultural values, even as the Opposition accused the government and the RSS of "distorting and destroying" the Constitution.

- HT Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

Speaking at an event in Delhi on Thursday, RSS general secretary, Hosabale said, "During the Emergency, two words, secular and socialist, were added to the Constitution, which were not part of the original Preamble. Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not... a debate must happen on this. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar's Constitution. During the Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added."

The changes were among those made in the contentious 42nd Amendment, passed in 1976.

His statement stoked a political furore, and the Congress accused the RSS of wanting to "destroy" the Constitution. "The mask of RSS has come off again. The Constitution irks them because it speaks of equality, secularism and justice," Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said on X. "The RSS, BJP do not want the Constitution, they want 'Manusmriti'. They aim to strip the marginalized and poor of their rights and enslave them again. Snatching a powerful weapon like the Constitution from them is their real agenda," he said.

"The RSS should stop dreaming this dream -- we will never let it succeed. Every patriotic Indian will defend the Constitution until their last breath," Gandhi asserted.