As the heat and dust of India’s general election campaign gains momentum, there has been a significant change in the BJP’s focus in recent days.
With the Congress hammering home the charge that a third term for Modi would mean changing or scrapping the country’s Constitution, and therefore ending reservations for the most poor and vulnerable, the ruling party has refuted the same.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/bjps-narrative-on-constitution-strategic-move-or-damage-control-1.102440113
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #India #politics
With the Congress hammering home the charge that a third term for Modi would mean changing or scrapping the country’s Constitution, and therefore ending reservations for the most poor and vulnerable, the ruling party has refuted the same.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/bjps-narrative-on-constitution-strategic-move-or-damage-control-1.102440113
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #India #politics
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00As the election campaign heats up here in India, the issue of India's constitution
00:09and reservations for backward castes has become the biggest focal point for the BJP in the
00:14Congress.
00:15Ever since the beginning of this campaign, we've seen the opposition led by Rahul Gandhi
00:19telling people that if the BJP comes back to power this time, then it will use its majority
00:24to change the constitution and to do away with reservations altogether.
00:29Now this appears to be a messaging that has now got the BJP worried because all of a sudden,
00:34we are seeing the BJP leadership led by the Prime Minister and other top leaders hammering
00:39home the point that no, they are not going to change the constitution, that was never
00:43their plan, and that in fact, they've now turned the tables on the Congress and are
00:48going around telling people in public rallies that the Congress, in fact, will take away
00:52the reservations of backward castes, of Hindu backward castes, that is, and then give them
00:57to Muslims instead.
00:59So they have ended up polarizing this election once again on religious lines.
01:04This is a very, very sensitive issue here in India for many reasons.
01:08Reservations, in fact, is something that the RSS, the parent organization of the BJP, has
01:13historically been against.
01:16We also know that the RSS chief back in 2015, just before the Bihar elections, had spoken
01:21about doing away with reservations, and that is a comment that backfired on the BJP in
01:26Bihar at the time, and it ended up not doing well in those assembly polls.
01:30Now the RSS leadership too is at pains to say that it does not want to do away with
01:35reservations.
01:36So this is clearly, as I said, a sensitive issue, and it'll be interesting to see how
01:40it plays out in the weeks ahead.
01:42A senior NDA leader told me as much a few days ago, admitting that the opposition's
01:48stirring of anxiety over the constitution is a message that seems to have gone down
01:53to some of the most backward communities in the country, and that is why the BJP leadership
01:57is now going on the counter-offensive.