Kharge, Nadda engage in war of words over ‘Preamble’ row
Nadda, who is the leader of the house, hit back by bringing up the excesses meted out by the Congress government during the Emergency.
Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Union minister JP Nadda engaged in a war of words on Wednesday over the issue of revamped school curriculum in central government institutions.
Slamming the BJP government, Kharge, who is also the Congress president, blamed the BJP and RSS of meddling with school curriculum, in connection with reports claiming that the Preamble of the Constitution has been dropped from some NCERT books.
“The BJP government first removed Baba Saheb and Mahatma Gandhi’s statues, and now the Constitution is being meddled with,” Kharge said.
He was referring to the relocation of the Gandhi and Ambedkar statues in the Parliament complex to a different location when the new Lok Sabha was convened a month ago. The Centre dismissed the opposition uproar and said the statues were moved to a new location called ‘Prerna Sthal’ (inspiration point).
“I want to warn you that that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated by the people of India,” Kharge said.
Nadda, who is the leader of the house, hit back by bringing up the excesses meted out by the Congress government during the Emergency.
Stressing that the Constitution Day, celebrated on November 26, was declared under the Modi government, he said, “I want to remind everyone that the Constitution was attacked on 25 June 1975 (Emergency), and more than 90 times they dismissed the elected government. Your government put 1,25,000 people in jail for two years.”