Anti-quota talk a lie, says PM Modi

Nov 26 to be observed as Constitution Day, Ambedkar homes to be developed into pilgrimage centres; makes strong argument on JP anniversary to never forget the Emergency rule experience and how it was

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked his critics and other opponents for distorting his government’s stance on reservation quotas. “Each time an election comes, many spread canards that the Bharatiya Janata Party government will remove reservations. They did this when the Vajpayee government came to power. They can't digest that the BJP is accepted by dalits and backward classes,” he said in a public rally at the Bandra-Kurla Complex after unveiling a foundation stone for a memorial of B R Ambedkar and initiating two Mumbai metro rail projects. He chose to clarify the government's position on the eve of first round of polling for the Bihar assembly elections, where the BJP is taking on an alliance of other parties. Recently, opposition parties stepped up attacks after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohanrao Bhagwat made a case for review of the reservation policy.

Modi also announced that November 26 would be observed every year as ‘Constitution Day’; it was on this day in 1949 that the Constituent Assembly adopted the document. The PM said there would be awareness programmes on the Constitution in schools and colleges. “People must know about our Constitution, how it was made.”

He noted Ambedkar, considered the father of the Constitution, was given a Bharat Ratna posthumously, in 1990, by V P Singh’s National Front government to which the BJP had provided outside support.

Modi said Ambedkar faced so many challenges but there was no bitterness in him. He ought to be an inspiration for the entire world. “The world knows Martin Luther King but not Ambedkar,” he added. He announced that the Ambedkar memorial in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, the Alipur House in Delhi, the Indu Mill memorial in Mumbai, his parents' then house in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra and a house in London, purchased recently by the government, would be developed as panchteerth.

Modi later invoked Jayaprakash Narayan on the latter's 113th  birth anniversary on Sunday and said the biggest message that came out of the anti-Emergency struggle was the inspiration to fight repression. He said its memory musht be kept alive. “The kind of crisis that hit the country in that period had tempered the Indian democracy, which came out stronger...It should be remembered not to cry or brood over what had happened but to strengthen our resolve to strengthen the democratic values and framework in our country,” Modi said at a programme organised to mark J P’s birth anniversary.

Paying glowing tributes to the Loknayak, as J P was termed, the PM said: “The biggest message that came out of the anti-Emergency struggle was the inspiration to fight repression. So many people in politics today owe their initial days to those days of Emergency, JP Movement, Navnirman Movement..they gave birth to a new kind of politics in the nation.”

Adding: "We do not want to remember the Emergency to criticise someone but to constantly be reminded of commitment towards democracy and freedom of the press...Media should not let the country forget the Emergency."

He also spoke on the need to give attention to the development of sea and space technology. A vibrant ports sector was important for a nation blessed with long coastlines.