Former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh lashed out at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Sunday, accusing it of trying to “hijack” B.R. Ambedkar just as it had done with Mahatma Gandhi.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been consistently making efforts to shrink the space for parliamentary debate. At the same time, he himself is hijacking Dr. Ambedkar. So there is complete hypocrisy on the part of the PM and the RSS,” the Congress leader told The Hindu when asked about Dr. Ambedkar’s relevance in the current political scene.
“BJP and RSS leaders have hijacked Ambedkar though they did not believe in the Constitution. The NDA government has systematically undermined Parliament by bringing all Bills through the Money Bill route,” Mr. Ramesh said on the sidelines of the international summit on Dr. Ambedkar. “Dr. Ambedkar would had not approved of whatever the Modi government has done in the past two years. Even the Aadhaar Bill was declared as a Money Bill.”
He maintained that there was political competition for the Dalit vote and said the Congress has been holding programmes to reach out to Dalits, women and weaker sections of society.
