Ambedkar created binding force for India: Rajnath Singh

Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said BR Ambedkar created a "binding force" for India by being the architect of the country's constitution.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha in the two-day long special sitting of parliament to discuss commitment to the constitution as part of the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the home minister also paid tribute to first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

"Our country was divided in different princely states when India got independent. They wondered if the country would be able to be united. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel gave us one India, but the need then was to have a binding material that keeps India together," the home minister said.

"This binding material is the constitution. It has played an important role. We know how many problems he faced, he must have been hurt, yet (kept) his emotions in control," he said about Ambedkar.

"But he never said I have faced discrimination in India, so I will go somewhere else," Rajnath Singh said, to which some Congress members objected.

However, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said there was nothing objectionable in the comment.

He also said Ambedkar should not be seen as just a Dalit leader, saying it would be a "narrow perspective".