Maharashtra Assembly Polls: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday drew a sharp rhetoric to the ruling BJP and its alliance over the ‘blank constitution row,’ saying while the Constitution may remain blank to the BJP and RSS but for the Congress and INDIA bloc, it is “DNA of the country.”
“This fight is a ‘Vichardhara ki Ladai’ (fight of ideology), on one side there is Congress and INDI alliance and on the other side there is BJP-RSS,” said Rahul Gandhi. “Ye jo ladai hai ye vichardhara ki ladai hai, ek taraf Congress and INDI alliance and dusri taraf BJP RSS. We (INDIA bloc) say that the country should run through the constitution and the Prime Minister says that it is blank book with nothing written on it. This book is only blank for the RSS-BJP, for us, this is the DNA of the country,” said Rahul Gandhi.
“The Constitution contains the thoughts of Ambedkar, Phule ji, Shivaji Maharaj, Lord Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi. This is not a new book for us, for us this is a thought of thousands of years old, and for what is written in it, people in India have been dying and fighting for thousands of years,” he added. Accusing the BJP of ‘murder of the Constituion,’ Rahul Gandhi said that the Maharashtra government was stolen from the people of the state by the ruling party.
“The Prime Minister and the BJP have secretly murdered this constitution in closed rooms.This was a meeting to steal the government. In this meeting it was decided that MLAs will be bought for crores of rupees. I want to ask the public here, was BJP protecting the Constitution when it stole Maharashtra government,” questioned Rahul Gandhi.
“I will tell you why the government of Maharashtra was stolen from the people. The government was stolen for ‘Dharavi,’ because the BJP people – PM Modi, Amit Shah, wanted to give Maharashtra’s land, poor people’s land worth 1 lakh crore to their friend Gautam Adani, that’s why Maha’s government was stolen,” said Rahul Gandhi.
“Your government was stolen by paying lakhs and crores of rupees and buying money. The whole country knows that this work has been done by both the BJP,” he stated.
“Sauda hua hai Dharavi ki zameen ka,” said Rahul Gandhi, adding that the crores of rupees were paid off the MLAs to buy them off. “Everyone knows who gave the order to distribute the money with which the MLAs were bought. And then PM Modi clearly said that Rahul Gandhi is against reservation. In every meeting I am saying that the BJP is attacking the constitution and the BJP is saying the same thing back at us,” said the Congress leader.
“In the Lok Sabha I said that the wall of 50 per cent reservation that the BJP does not want will be broken by the INDIA bloc in the LS. I said this exact thing to him and then he again lost his memory and started saying Rahul Gandhi is against reservation. In the next meeting he will say that Rahul Gandhi is against caste census,” said the LoP.
In a direct attack to the media, Rahul Gandhi also said that the media belongs to the PM. “They (media) belong to the PM. However, it is not their fault, they have to take salary, they have to look after the education of children, they have to look after food, so these people cannot do anything against the owners, they are slaves in a way. I have no fight with them, but they will never listen to us. Like I just said that ‘PM Modi has lost his memory’, these people will never show this,” said Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul Gandhi further added, “The fight is for the Constitution. We are protecting it.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday praised the efforts of the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra, asserting that its focus on empowering every section of society has set it apart from the previous Aghadi government.
PM Modi also praised the tireless efforts of BJP workers, acknowledging their hard work in the run-up to the elections. “For the past several months, all of you have been working for the biggest ‘tapasya’ of democracy tirelessly. Now the day of the election is very near. It is time for ‘siddhi’ of the ‘sadhna’ that you did all these months,” he said, stressing the importance of the upcoming days for the party’s success.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections will take place on November 20, votes will be counted on November 23. In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In 2014, the BJP won 122 seats, Shiv Sena 63, and Congress 42.