Youth leaders of Opposition parties and organisations joined hands to save the Constitution, which they said is being targeted under the guise of the Ram temple movement, on Sunday.
“Religion is not in danger. An atmosphere is being created to pit Hindus against Muslims. The only thing in danger is our Constitution. The temple is being made an issue to hide failures of this government,” said Kanhaiya Kumar, former president of Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union and Communist Party of India leader.
The ‘save the Constitution rally’ was organised by 14 different youth organisations across the country and saw participation from the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mewani and Patidar leader Hardik Patel. It was kicked off from Rajgruha in Dadar, the residence of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, and culminated at Chaityabhoomi near Shivaji Park.
Mr. Mewani said, “Every youngster must join hands to save our Constitution. Discussions should be held on the Rafale deal, malnutrition in Jharkhand, employment and demonetisation. Not on Ram temple. When the BJP raise this issue, ask them about Achhe din and employment,” he said.
Mr. Patel said, the way this government is pressurising the Supreme Court and CBI and other institutes shows that it wants to compromise the Constitution. “Drought in Maharashtra and farmers’ woes are the real problems. The temple issue is being hyped up to impact the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan elections,” he said.
The youth of this country wants employment, Mr. Patel said. “How can the Shiv Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad organise programmes in huge numbers in Ayodhya when Section 144 is imposed?Aaditya Thackeray is a young leader. He should have led the protest march against farmer suicides in Vidarbha and Marathwada,” he aked.
Maharashtra Youth Congress president Satyajit Tambe said that the association of all youth organisations will continue even in the future and joint agitations will be held to expose the government’s “anti-constitutional” and “anti-youth policies”.
