The BJP government will never change the Constitution or end reservation, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, accusing the Congress of creating "fear psychosis" and resorting to spreading misinformation for "vote bank" politics.
In an interview with PTI, Mr Singh blasted the Congress for spreading "canards" that the BJP will change the Constitution if it returns to power and especially asserted that there was no question of changing the Preamble of the Constitution.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been alleging that the BJP will "tear up and throw away" the Constitution if it retains power. Some other Congress functionaries had expressed apprehensions that the BJP may drop the word "secularism" from the Preamble of the Constitution.
"Congress brought constitutional amendments 80 times. They changed the Preamble during the Emergency," the Defence Minister said.
"The BJP will never change the Constitution. Constitution makers never imagined that there would be changes in the Preamble. You (Congress) only acted to hurt the core idea of the Constitution," Mr Singh said.
"There is no question of changing the Preamble of the Constitution. They changed it and now they are making baseless allegations against us," he added.
The Preamble to the Constitution of India presents the principles of the Constitution. The 42nd Amendment in 1976 changed the description of India from a "sovereign democratic republic" to a "sovereign socialist secular democratic republic".
"They (Congress) are trying to get peoples' support by instilling fear among the citizens," Singh said.
"I would suggest that they should try to get people's support by creating confidence and not by instilling fears. Electoral campaigns should be based on facts," he said.
On Friday, Mr Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP and the RSS are attacking India's democracy continuously and want to "destroy" the country's Constitution.
"The Congress is creating fear psychosis" and resorting to spreading misinformation for "vote bank politics", the Defence Minister said.
On the issue of reservation also, he alleged that the Congress is misleading the nation.
"The Congress is trying to mislead people. There will not be any end to reservation. They are making false allegations against us," Mr Singh said.
The Congress has asked BJP leaders to clear the party's stance on whether it would remove the 50 per cent cap on reservation for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes.
"We will not tinker with the reservation at all," Mr Singh said, when asked about the Congress' call to clarify on the 50 per cent cap.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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