EVEN as the nation celebrated the Constitution Day with luminaries such as President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi highlighting rights and duties of the people guaranteed by the Constitution, the Opposition leaders indulged in ugly and shameless propaganda that the Constitution of India was in danger. As she mounted her opposition to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in her State, West Bengal Chief Minister Ms. Mamata Banerjee went to the extent of threatening that she would shake the country if the SIR was not discontinued immediately. And when the media questioned other Opposition leaders about the threat, they refused to see sense in the SIR and insisted that the Constitution was in danger -- without actually offering any substantial points to prove their argument.

 

Of course, by now the common people of the country have known how hollow and false and ugly the Opposition propaganda is about the Constitution being in danger. For, over the past 10-11 years, they have seen the Government led by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi upholding the honour and dignity of the Constitution in every which the way, and trying to strengthening the constitutional ethos of the country in the best possible manner. The common people also see the SIR as a legitimate exercise by the Election Commission of India (EC) to cleanse the impurities in the voters’ lists so that the elections remain free from manipulative numerical games. Over the past 10-11 years, the Opposition has made every possible attempt to tarnish the image of not just the Modi Government but also the country and its democratic and constitutional institutions.

 

It has not spared even the famed Armed Forces that are often praised the world over for their high professional standards and patriotic commitment. In the process, the Opposition camp now looks like an entity working against the national interests. The obstinacy and consistency of the ugly propaganda against the country by the Opposition have led common people even to suspect that some external powers or lobbies are instigating the Opposition to undertake anti-India campaigns in order to mislead the society. With the SIR in Bihar and the legislative elections there behind us, the common people ask simple questions to the Opposition about its stance against the SIR.

 

If elections could be held without any untoward incident in Bihar after a successful exercise of SIR, then how can it insist that the Constitution is in danger ?; or, if the SIR could be completed in Bihar within stipulated time-frame, why should it object to a similar time-frame in West Bengal ?; or, if the Booth-Level-Officers (BLOs) in Bihar did their job efficiently without any fuss, why should there be such a fuss about the BLO getting loaded down with extra work in West Bengal ?; or, why should not other regions going through the SIR exercise complain against it if they had similar objections ?; or can the Opposition show any one single point in the SIR enumeration form seeking to segmentise people on the basis of religion or caste ? ... The Opposition has no answers to these questions. Then, all it seeks to do is to add more con fusion to the situation by making contradictory statements that explain nothing. All this has not remained hidden from public eye. The common people see every fraud the Opposition wishes to unleash upon the larger Indian society. Yet, the Opposition has chosen to be blind about this reality and is continuing with its propaganda of utter and ugly falsehood about the Constitution being in danger. Some people in the Opposition camp may be realising the folly in the narrative, all right, but are not possibly in a position to put up open resistance to its promotion. Of course, that is not the people’s problem. At best -- or at worst -- it is the problem the Opposition must sort out. And by any standard, it does not have the wherewithal to sort that out.