CONGRESS TO OPPOSE ANY MOVE TO SUBVERT FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES: DPCC

On Nov 27, 2015

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, in a statement here today, said that at a time when the entire nation is celebrating 125th Birth Year of the architect of our Constitution, Babasaheb Dr. B.R.Ambedkar and cherishing the values enshrined in our Constitution, when Parliament is discussing the ‘Theme of Commitment to the Constitution’, it was shocking to see the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government, in a print advertisement issued by the Department of Welfare of Sheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Minorities, chose to remove the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ from the Preamble of the Constitution. DPCC shadow committee member and AICC panelist Smt. Ragini Nayak said this was an explicit indication of the Kejriwal government’s lack of commitment and loyalty to the core values and principles of the constitution and a blatant example of how people’s money is being wasted in misleading advertisements.

She said this was not the first time when a government had omitted the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ in its advertisements. On 26th January 2015, the BJP-led Union government also removed these words in their print advertisements. This omission clearly indicated the agenda of the NDA government against India’s secular fabric and any kind of focus on the dignity of an individual. She said this agenda found expression in the Lok Sabha debate by Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh yesterday and by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitely in the Rajya Sabha today. She said it seems that the Kejriwal government is hand- in-glove with the Modi Government on subverting the constitutional regime of our country and threatening the very republic.
She said the Preamble, which is called the soul of the Constitution, embodies the “basic philosophy and fundamental values on which the Constitution is based”. The inclusion of the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ is best seen as the explication of the ideals modern India has drawn directly from the freedom struggle. These words were added to reassure the nation that minorities would be safe and the moneyed class would not dominate the economy.

Smt Ragini Nayak said in 1976, the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution that inserted the words ‘Secular’ and ‘Socialist’ in the Preamble, had to undergo immense Parliamentary as well as judicial scrutiny. While many other aspects of the Amendment were questioned and changed, the inclusion of these two words were upheld at various stages. The Minerva Mills vs Union of India Supreme Court judgement of 1980 indeed set the Preamble of the Constitution along with these two words as a ‘Basic Feature of the Constitution’- something which both the Modi government and the Kejriwal government cannot change. Therefore, the assertions in Parliament yesterday by Shri Rajnath Singh, today by Shri Arun Jaitely and the implicit support shown by Shri Arvind Kejriwal through the omission in advertisements are an exercise towards misleading people and subverting the fundamental Constitutional values, whilch will be strongly opposed by the Congress Party.

Smt. Ragini Nayak said there are umpteen examples of an ideological alliance between the Modi Government and the Kejriwal government to launch an “unabated, vitiolic and vicious onslaught on the cherished values of the Constitution and the Nehruvian Idea of India”.

She recalled that on 28th August 2015, Shri Kejriwal chaired the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) meeting which unanimously passed a resolution to rename Aurangzeb Road.

Smt. Nayak said the student wing of AAP, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) worked in tandem with the student wing of the BJP, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthee Parishad (ABVP) to support the imposition of the draconian Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) and Common University Act (CBA) on Delhi University by the MHRD. These violate the very basic Indian ethos of pluralism and heterogeneity and are designed to take away the autonomy of all central universities, which have been granted by the respective acts of Parliament, statutes and ordinances.

She said the delay in Lokayukta taking charge in Delhi and the Jan Lokpal Bill being tabled without following due procedures (which in all likelihood would invalidate the Act) can be related to two out of four ministers of the AAP goverment facing corruption charges, 21 AAP MLAs being charged/arrested for fake degree, wife-beating, 420, rioting, criminal intimidation and yet another AAP MLA, Akhilesh Tripathi, being recently arrested. She said it seems the AAP government is scared of more skeletons tumbing out of its cup board. More importantly, this is yet another example of striking similarity with the BJP government at the Centre, which has not appointed the central Lokpal even after 18 months of being in power.

Smt. Ragini Nayak said it was unfortunate that for trivial procedural issues, Delhi has more often than not seen Modi and Kejriwal governments getting at loggerheads with each other, but they are working hand-in-hand, in close co-operation to encroach and violate the core tenets of our constitution and those values which define our republic.