NEW DELHI: Calling the BJP-RSS “enemies” of Ambedkar, and stating that Ambedkar had blamed V D Savarkar for his election defeat in 1952, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said PM Modi should read the letter that the framer of the Constitution wrote to his friend about his defeat. He said RSS-BJP only pay lip service to the late neta for political reasons.
Kharge slammed the PM’s allegations against Congress, saying the party gave respect to Ambedkar by making him a member of the Constituent Assembly and chairman of the drafting committee, in contrast to RSS, which burnt a copy of the Constitution and condemned Ambedkar for not including “manusmriti” in the statute. “They are enemies of Ambedkar, and did not respect him when he was alive. They condemned Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism by mocking that ‘Buddha has become SC’,” he said. “RSS never had a photo of Ambedkar in its office and burnt the Constitution in Ramlila Maidan. PM should not try to fool the people, they are smart,” he said.
Kharge said the Constitution is a gift from Ambedkar which gives citizens the right to social, economic and political justice. He said the AICC session last week resolved to take forward the ideas of social justice, and repeated the five-fold demand Congress made in its resolution – caste census, quotas in private sector educational institutions, law on sub-plan, removal of 50% cap on reservations, implementation of women’s reservation with sub-quotas for SC/ST/OBC.
