Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday alleged that the Congress and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi were part of a conspiracy funded by foreign powers, especially China, to create political anarchy and foist an ultra-leftist or communist regime on India.
The Congress’ strategy, Fadnavis alleged, was to hold the red Constitution in one hand and, with the other, discredit every institution established under Dr. BR Ambedkar’s Constitution. “They know that if they directly call the Constitution bad, people will reject them. They have been claiming that institutions like the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) are bad, have abused the ECI (Election Commission of India) in Parliament and have claimed that decisions cannot be taken in Parliament. Now they are abusing the country’s Supreme Court. They are taking out a protest march against it. The chief minister warned the Congress and Rahul Gandhi that while they appeared to be fighting against Modi, their battle had turned into a fight against the Constitution. “You accuse us of vote theft, but you have stolen the Constitution itself. The constitutional amendments carried out by the Congress under Indira Gandhi froze the fundamental rights given by Dr. BR Ambedkar.
He also accused the Congress of hypocrisy on constitutional safeguards, alleging that in 1975, Indira Gandhi amended the Constitution in such a way that no court would be able to deliver a verdict on elections. The fundamental rights destroyed by the Congress were restored by the Janata Party in 1977. Therefore, they are claiming that the institutions established by the Constitution are corrupt and ineffective.
Fadnavis raised concerns over Rahul Gandhi’s recent trip to Vietnam and Thailand and wondered why the Congress and trusts controlled by the party were getting funding from China, which he said had been trying to infiltrate areas along India’s border. “Why is the Congress getting funding from China to spread anarchy in our country,” he said, alleging that the copy of the Constitution with a red cover which the party displayed at protests was merely a mask, and their real intentions were contained in the “red book”. This is what anarchy looks like,” Fadnavis said. He said the Congress was the first to undermine the Constitution and democracy. We, the ruling parties, have taken to the streets to stop these Constitution thieves from damaging our Constitution,” he said.
Fadnavis also defended the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Congress, he said, must explain why it was troubled when the names of 25 million deceased people were removed from the electoral rolls. The chief minister said that out of the 20 constituencies in West Bengal where the highest number of names had been deleted under the SIR ahead of the assembly polls last year, the Trinamool Congress had won 13 seats and no voter had raised any objection to the deletion of their names.
