THE people of India need to listen to the appeal to sanity by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s that they should not get distracted by false propaganda by the Opposition that in its third term the Modi Government would change the Constitution of India. Not only the Prime Minister but also every single leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been asserting that the Constitution would always remain sacrosanct and would be respected in letter and spirit. Yet, the Opposition has continued its vicious and malicious propaganda on that count only for votebank politics -- so much so that many people who revere Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar as their demi-god appear to feel angry at a purported attempt to change the Constitution. This presents a dangerous prospect for the nation in the larger perspective. Naturally, such consequences must be avoided at all costs. It is against this background that the Prime Minister has appealed to people’s sanity. He has said insistently that the common people must not fall prey to any attempt to present a wrong and deliberately falsified picture of political reality. When the Prime Minister makes such an appeal, he is less worried about the votes his Government would garner for continuance in power, and more concerned about the wrong impression that some elements wish to impose upon innocent, unsuspecting people’s minds.

 

The Prime Minister’s appeal has a great substance. For, the people must also understand that Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi stood in the Lok Sabha and insisted that India was not a nation but only a “Union of States”. In literal statement, this may be right according to the Constitution, but in cultural sense, Mr. Rahul Gandhi only obliterated the eternal truth of the Indian nationhood. But neither Mr. Gandhi nor his party is worried about stating facts. His main interest is to malign the popular mind about Mr. Narendra Modi and his Government -- so that he is deprived of the third term as Prime Minister. Such political motives, however, have only a short life, so to say. These motives can travel only some distance before dying down on their own. Though the Opposition is using the point of the so-called alteration in the Constitution as a vote-garnering effort, the issue will die an automatic death the moment the election results are out on June 4, 2024 -- having made only negligible impact on the general voting pattern of the country’s electorate.

 

Despite this, we feel that it is our bounden duty to urge people to understand what Mr. Narendra Modi has to say on the issue before making up their mind this or that way. In the past ten years as Prime Minister, and for 12-13 years prior to that as Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Mr. Modi has done nothing to suggest that he intends to demolish the Constitution or to disturb its structure and its core. There is no evidence whatsoever to suspect that Mr. Narendra Modi or the BJP harbours a negative thought about the Constitution of India. Much to the contrary, enough evidence is available to assert that the Prime Minister and his Government and party have done everything possible in their power to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution. People of India, therefore, need to make up their mind once and for all that Mr. Modi will never be the person to tamper with the Constitution. Much to the contrary, he would be the one who would go full distance to protect and preserve the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and would think of minor alterations in the statute only to the extent of procedural amendments. Such an understanding would make a much-needed positive change of popular attitude.