April 26, 2024 19:39 (IST)
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Words 'secular', 'socialist' must be removed from Constitution: Shiv Sena
New Delhi, Jan 28 (IBNS): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has landed itself in a controversy after its ally Shiv Sena's MP Sanjay Raut said that the words 'socialist' and 'secular' must be removed from the Preamble of the Constitution of India.
The remark came following a government advertisement, issued on January 26 by the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, which displayed an image of the Preamble to the Constitution as it appeared before the 42nd Amendment, without the words 'secular' and 'socialist'.
The words "Socialist, Secular" were introduced in 1976, when the Congress was in power.
After the advertisement was out, Shiv Sena lawmaker Sanjay Raut said created a row by saying that the two above words should be permanently removed from the Preamble.
"We welcome the exclusion of the (secular and socialist) words from the Republic Day advertisement. Though it might have been done inadvertently, it is like honouring the feelings of the people of India. If these words were deleted by mistake this time, they should be deleted from the Constitution permanently," the Sena MP said.
Oppositions like the Congress party has slammed the remark.
"Const-India Sovereign Secular Socialist Democratic Republic Govt Ad deletesSecular&Socialist Prelude to substitution with Communal&Corporate," Congress leader Manish Tewari tweeted.
"This is a secular country and not a Hindu country. The word secular cannot be removed arbitrarily on its own. This is an attempt to undermine the Constitution of the country," Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer was quoted as saying by CNN-IBN.
However, the BJP members and the government has defended the remark.
"The words were included in the Constitution after an amendment in 1976. It doesn't mean that we are saying that before 1976 governments were not secular, we were just respecting the Preamble made at that time and used the same picture which was first made during the year of first Republic Day," Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore told media.
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