NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday accused Congress of circulating a “doctored” version of his Rajya Sabha speech after having been exposed as “anti-Ambedkar, anti-Constitution, anti-reservation and anti-OBCs”, asserting that BJP was exploring all legal options in response to the falsehoods being spread.
“Earlier they edited the PM’s statements and circulated those. During elections, my statement was edited using AI. Now they present my statement in a distorted manner. I request the media to share the full text of my speech in Rajya Sabha yesterday,” Shah told reporters.
“I am constrained not to speak about what happened in Parliament, but the party has taken a serious view of it and is exploring all legal options to take appropriate action,” he further said, emphasising that he belonged to a party which would never insult B R Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution.
Shah responded to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s demand for his resignation and said, “I would have resigned if it had made you happy. But this will make no difference to Congress’s fortune as it is destined to languish in the opposition for at least another 15 years.”
Stating that Congress had distorted his speech to make false claims, Shah stood by his charges against Congress. “Every word of my speech is factual and taken from history. That is why they are making such efforts by editing my speech and twisting it. Since yesterday, Congress has been presenting facts in a distorted way, and I condemn it… Congress is anti-Ambedkar, it is against quota and the Constitution. Congress also insulted Savarkar. By imposing Emergency, they violated all constitutional values,” he said.
“Congress got Ambedkar defeated twice. He had to quit the Nehru cabinet because of differences,” Shah said, adding that Nehru opposed the demand of the then mayor of Bombay to build a public memorial for the Dalit icon by saying the exchequer should not be used for memorials. “Congress had no qualms about building memorials for Nehru himself, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi,” he said. He also said that whereas Nehru and Indira Gandhi conferred Bharat Ratna on themselves, Ambedkar did not get the honour until Congress was defeated.
On Kharge’s allegation that he had insulted Ambedkar, Shah said, “I want to tell Kharge ji, you come from the section of society for which Ambedkar dedicated his life. I am disappointed that you are participating in this because of pressure from Rahul.”