The Shiv Sena on Wednesday added fuel to a controversy over the absence of words “secular” and “socialist” in an advertisement issued on the occasion of Republic Day by the Information & Broadcasting (I & B) Ministry in the preamble of the Constitution, by welcoming the deletion of the two words and rooting for their “permanent deletion” from the Preamble of the Constitution.
A day after the Congress leader Manish Tewari hit out at the I&B Ministry for “stifling and trampling” with the Constitution and in the process committing an “unforgivable sacrilege”, Sena leader Sanjay Raut made a strong case for “ permanent deletion” of words “secular” and “socialist” from the Preamble of the Constitution.
Talking to media persons here, Raut stated: “We welcome the exclusion of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ from the Republic Day advertisement. Though it might have been done inadvertently, it is like honouring the feelings of the people of India. If these words were deleted by mistake this time around, they should in fact be deleted from the Constitution permanently”.
“From the time the two words were included in the Constitution, it is being said that this country can never be secular. Balasaheb Thackeray and before him Veer Savarkar had been saying that India was divided on the lines of religion. Pakistan was created for Muslims, thus, what remains is a Hindu Rashtra,” Raut said.
“The minority community has been used only for political gains, while “Hindus are being continuously disrespected”. It is nowhere written in the Constitution that you mete out such treatment to Hindus and use Muslims to garner votes,” Raut said. Attributing the mistake on the part of the Government to an “act of destiny”, Raut said: “This mistake on the part of the government has happened only because destiny willed this to happen. Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India, and his thoughts on Hindutva are strong”.
Raut’s controversial comments have pitted the ruling NDA against the Opposition Congress, which had on Tuesday attacked the Narendra Modi government for deleting words “secular” and “socialist” from the preamble of the Constitution in the Republic Day advertisement. Congress leader Manish Tewari had charged on Tuesday that the deletion of the two words from the Preamble of the Constitution was only a prelude to their “substitution” with “communal” and “corporate”.
“The Constitution of India, as it stands today, is very clear that India would be a ‘Sovereign Democratic Secular and Socialist Republic’. To remove the world ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ is actually is an undoing of the will of power as expressed through the 42nd Amendment,” Tewari had said. The 42nd Amendment was enacted during the Emergency in 1976-77.
“What has happened is not only serious but also insidious. Action should be taken against the officers involved and the minister should explain how it has happened,” Tiwari had said. Dismissing Tewari’s charge, Minister of State for I&B Rajyavardhan Rathore had said that his Ministry had used an “original” picture of the preamble as it appeared before the Amendment, to “honour” the first Preamble.
“let me assure you, we are celebrating the 66th Republic Day, that is, we are celebrating an anniversary of the Preamble that was made way back then. The photograph that we have put is of the first Preamble that our great leaders had made at that point of time, Rathore had said.