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Speaking during the debate on the Constitution in Parliament, PM Modi accused Nehru of doing a sin by amending the Constitution.
PM Modi in Lok Sabha(PTI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused India’s first Prime Minister and Congress veteran Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru of changing the Constitution and attacking the freedom of speech and expression.
While replying to the debate on 75 years of the adoption of the Indian Constitution in Lok Sabha, PM Modi said that Pt Nehru had written to the then Chief Ministers of the states saying, “if Constitution comes in our way….then we will make all the amendments necessary.”
“During that time, PM Nehru wrote to the CMs. He wrote that if the constitution becomes a hindrance for us, then we should bring change to it. This is what Nehru said!”
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He accused Nehru, who was not even the elected Prime Minister of the country, of insulting the Constitution makers and doing a sin.
“This country didn’t have an elected government from 1947 to 1952. A temporary system, a selected government was in place. Elections were not held. An interim government was in place until the elections. Before 1952, Rajya Sabha was also not formed. There were no elections in states as well. When there wasn’t an elected government, he amended the Constitution through an Ordinance. Right to Freedom of Expression was attacked…This was an insult to Constitution makers,” he said.
He said that the then President Dr Rajendra Prasad had advised Nehru of not amending the Constitution, but Nehru, ran his own Constitution.
“We should also note that the country did not sit silently. The President and Speaker warned Nehru and tried to stop him. But Nehru followed his own constitution. Congress got addicted to this habit of tampering with the constitution and they repeated this again and again,” he added.
He further accused the Gandhi-Nehru family of tampering the Constitution. “This family has always challenged the Constitution,” he added.
“In six decades, the constitution was changed 75 times. The seed that was planted by the first PM, was taken care of by another PM — Indira Gandhi. Disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision of 1971, she changed the constitution to clip the wings of our judiciary to give complete power to the Parliament.”
Speaking on the Emergency, PM Modi said that the Constitution was torn apart when it was just 25 years old. “The Emergency, imposed in 1975, stripped away all constitutional rights, turning the country into a jail. All the rights of the citizens were snatched and there was a clampdown on media. Congress will never be able to clear this stain,” he stated.
