The Congress on Thursday slammed the BJP for attacking the INDIA bloc over its protest against Union home minister Amit Shah’s remarks about Ambedkar.
The opposition party’s attack came over a social media post by the BJP in which it posted a photograph from the INDIA bloc MPs’ protest in Parliament on Wednesday.
It, however, replaced the images of Ambedkar that the INDIA bloc MPs were holding during the protest with a picture of US billionaire George Soros. The backdrop was also changed to: ‘We Love Soros’.
“Hello, Congress and INDI alliance. We fixed the image for you. You’re welcome,” the BJP wrote as caption.
On Thursday, Congress general secretary in-charge organisation K C Venugopal responded to BJP’s post saying that the party is “brazen in its insult and ridicule of Dr Ambedkar”.
“The BJP is brazen in its insult and ridicule of Dr. Ambedkar. Instead of submitting ensuring the Home Minister is removed from his post for the immense hurt caused to the crores of Babasaheb’s followers by Amit Shah’s statements, they are doubling down on the ridicule,” Venugopal wrote.
“Is standing up for Dr. Ambedkar against the insult to him a matter of joke for the BJP?” he asked.
Venugopal further accused the BJP of bringing their “rotten falsehoods” on a “sensitive matter like Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy”.
“They are bringing in their rotten falsehoods even on a sensitive matter like Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy, because they do not respect him and want to diminish his stature for their narrow political goals,” he added.
Row over Amit Shah’s statement
Amit Shah, in his address in the Rajya Sabha after a two-day discussion on 75 years of the Constitution on Tuesday, said the Congress had made it a fashion to take Ambedkar’s name.
“Abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai – Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar bhagwan ka lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata (It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. If they had taken God’s name so many times, they would have got a place in heaven),” Shah said.
The attack, which came from almost all opposition parties, including Congress, TMC, DMK, RJD, Left parties, and Shiv Sena-UBT, led to the adjournment of both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday even prompted the BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to defend Amit Shah.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should sack Union home minister Amit Shah if he had “any respect left” for Ambedkar, even as opposition members disrupted proceedings in both Houses of Parliament and shared clips of the first part of Shah’s statement.
Modi, on the other hand, attacked the Congress, saying the opposition party had indulged “in every possible dirty trick to obliterate the legacy of Dr Ambedkar and humiliate the SC/ST communities.” Shah also said that his statement was distorted to create an “illusion” that he insulted Ambedkar.