NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday upped the ante against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after its general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale made a strong pitch to remove “socialist and secular” from the Preamble of the Constitution.The leader of opposition in Lok Sabha claimed that the Constitution irks RSS because it speaks about equality, secularism, and justice.“The mask of RSS has come off once again. The Constitution irks them because it speaks of equality, secularism, and justice,” Rahul said in a social media post on X.“RSS-BJP doesn’t want the Constitution; they want Manusmriti. They aim to strip the masses and the poor of their rights, seeking to enslave them once more. Their real agenda is to snatch away a powerful weapon like the Constitution. RSS must stop dreaming this dream – we will never let them succeed. Every patriotic Indian will defend the Constitution until their last breath,” he added.This comes a day after Hosabale proposed said that the words “Socialist” and “Secular” were forcibly added to the Constitution and should now be reconsidered.“The Emergency wasn’t just a misuse of power, but an attempt to crush civil liberties. Millions were imprisoned, and freedom of the press was suppressed. He said that those who imposed the Emergency and trampled the Constitution and democracy have never apologised.”The words “socialist”, “secular” and “integrity” were inserted into the Preamble under the 42nd constitutional amendment moved by the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi government in 1976.The amendment changed the description of India in the Preamble from a “sovereign, democratic republic” to a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”.Earlier, the Supreme Court dismissed plea challenging inclusion of words “socialist”, “secular” and “integrity” to the Preamble of the Constitution.A bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said amendment power of the Parliament extends to the Preamble as well and the fact that the Constitution was adopted in 1949 does not make any difference.
