No Threat of Emergency in Country Today: Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi: The government today dismissed opposition's charge of a threat to the Constitution and sought to turn tables on the Congress for imposing Emergency when fundamental rights were suspended.

"Today there is no threat to the Constitution, no Emergency, there are no arrests (of political rivals), no supercession of judges. We must work together to strengthen the Constitution," Parliamentary Affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said in the Lok Sabha while participating in the discussion on commitment to India's Constitution.

He also insisted that the term 'secular' will remain part of the Preamble of the Constitution.

Responding to the debate on the term secularism witnessed in the House yesterday, Mr Naidu said the word is part of the Preamble "and will remain so. But what I want to say is that it should be in our hearts and should remain."

At the same time, the minister hit out at 'pseudo secularists' saying those who followed politics on the basis of caste and communal lines "call others as anti-secular."

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"People get swayed and misled by caste and religion. Then for five years, they cannot do anything," he said.

Mr Naidu's remarks came in the backdrop of Congress President Sonia Gandhi's targetting of the government yesterday on the issue of intolerance. She alleged that ideals and principles of the Constitution were under threat and being attacked deliberately.

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