NewzVille Desk
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday day lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party for its consistent and continuous attempts to destroy the Constitution. “Odisha government, just like Prime Minister Modi, is being run by Adani”, remarked Gandhi.
Addressing a public rally ‘ Samvidhan Bachao Samavesh’ in Bhubaneswar on Friday, they asserted that come what may, the Congress will not let the BJP trample upon the Constitution.
Kharge warned against the Modi/BJP government’s agenda to destroy the Constitution and replace it with Manusmriti. He pointed out, in the last General Elections their sole agenda was to change the Constitution after getting 400 plus seats. But the people of the country did not give them that chance, he noted.
Congress president warned the Dalit and the Adivasi communities in particular that the BJP will bring in Manusmriti and will not let them go to the temples. He cited the recent example of two Dalits being made to eat grass and drink water from a drain after their heads were tonsured and they were made to crawl on their knees for two kilometers.
Kharge challenged the BJP and the RSS to name a single contribution they had made in India’s freedom struggle or in safeguarding the nation’s freedom, unity and integrity — on par with the sacrifice of life by Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
He said, Rahul Gandhi was also following in their footsteps by uniting the country against the BJP’s divisive policy of polarising people in the name of religion.
Speaking on the occasion, Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP government in Odisha had a single point agenda to snatch away the wealth of the people of the state and handover it to a select few billionaires.
He pointed out, the BJP government went to the extent of stopping the Jagannath Rath Yatra to wait for the Adani family.
He reiterated his charge that the BJP was continuously attacking the Constitution. He pointed out how the BJP was now trying to replicate the Maharashtra model, where it stole the election, in Bihar also.
He said, while in Maharashtra the BJP added one crore new voters, in Bihar it was trying to disenfranchise two crore voters. But, he asserted, the Congress will not let that happen.
Gandhi expressed disappointment at the functioning of the Election Commission of India, saying it was not doing its own job, but working as an organ of the BJP. He pointed out, neither the ECI was providing the party with the electoral rolls used during Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra nor the video footage of the voting.
Referring to the BJP government’s working in Odisha, Rahul Gandhi said, its entire focus was to help a few billionaire friends of the Prime Minister and handover them the wealth of the state like the water, the land and the forests (jal, jungle aur zameen). He assured that the Congress party will restore the land rights to the Adivasis which were being snatched away by the BJP government.
The senior Congress leader asked what had the BJP government done for the youth, for the Dalits, for the Adivasis and the poor from the general category. He said, even the big industries, which are handed over huge land parcels belonging to people of Odisha, do not generate enough jobs to accommodate the unemployed youth of the state.
Congress general secretary organization KC Venugopal, AICC Odisha in-charge Ajay Kumar Lallu, Odisha PCC president Bhakta Charan Das, Rama Chandra Kadam and others were also present in the meeting.
