Union Home Minsiter Amit Shah with Ministers addressing the media on his remarks on B.R. Ambedkar at BJP HQ, in New Delhi on December 18, 2024
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the Congress of twisting and distorting his comments in the Rajya Sabha with regard to Constitution framer Bhimrao Ambedkar, attributing it to “the way that the BJP had exposed how the Congress was anti-Ambedkar, anti-Constitution and anti-reservation.”
Addressing a press conference at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) national headquarters in New Delhi, Mr. Shah, flanked by his Cabinet colleagues J. P. Nadda, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, Information and Broadcasting Minister Aswini Vaishnaw and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, said that the BJP will look into the possibility of exploring legal options both inside and outside Parliament against the Congress for twisting his statement.
Mr. Shah said that in his speech he had, based on facts, revealed how the Congress was “anti-Ambedkar, anti-Constitution and anti-reservation” and that the Opposition party had, by splicing an 11-second footage from this speech, tried to misrepresent what he had said. “The Congress has done this even in the past, and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements have been distorted to mislead the people,” he said.
He said that the Congress had also insulted V. D. Savarkar and blew to smithereens the values enshrined in the Constitution by imposing Emergency. “When all these facts came out, the Congress used its old tricks and made an effort to mislead the society by presenting twisted facts,” Mr. Shah said. “I belong to a party that can never insult Babasaheb Ambedkar,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had leapt to the defence of Mr. Shah in a series of posts on X.
When asked about Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s demand for his resignation, Mr. Shah replied in a lighter vein that while he could quit if this will “make the Congress president happy”, it will never solve his problems. “He has to remain in his chair,” Mr. Shah said in a reference to the Congress being in the Opposition.
He said that he had expected better from Mr. Kharge since he belongs to a category for whom Ambedkar had devoted his whole life, but, he added, that the Congress leader was acting under the pressure of Rahul Gandhi to be part of this “malicious” campaign against him by distorting his views on Ambedkar.
The controversy surrounding Mr. Shah’s comments on Ambedkar is significant as the Opposition had, during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, run a campaign stating that the BJP’s political slogan of asking for more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha had been to ensure radical changes in the Constitution, including ending reservations. The BJP ended with a sub-par performance of 240 seats, 32 seats short of a majority, and has attributed much of this loss to the Opposition’s campaign. The Haryana and Maharashtra poll results may have quietened that particular narrative but the speed at which the entire government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, moved to quell the controversy shows that it is a wound that runs deep.
Published – December 18, 2024 06:29 pm IST
