Notion that BJP is anti-Ambedkar is far from truth: Thawarchand Gehlot

Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawarchand Gehlot Thursday rejected the charge that the BJP is anti-Ambedkar and it will change the Constitution, saying this notion is far from the truth.

He was speaking at an event organised by the Maharashtra government to honour journalists with the Mukhnayak Award.

Mukhnayak was a newspaper started by B R Ambedkar.

"Even today, many people criticise the BJP and say that it is anti-Ambedkar, doesn't believe in the Constitution and will change it.

"I have been working as a Jan Sangh worker since the 1960s. My experience is that the impression that has been made is far from truth," Gehlot said.

Citing an instance, the minister said when he was a junior minister in the Sunder Lal Patwa dispensation in Madhya Pradesh in the early 1990s, the then BJP government had sought to build a grand memorial at the birthplace of the Dr Ambedkar in Mhow and even taken steps for it but the government did not last.

However, the Congress government then did nothing to build the memorial, and it was only after the BJP came to power that it built a grand memorial, Gehlot said.

He added that the Modi government built a memorial at Alipure Road in Delhi where Ambedkar had passed, besides building the Dr Amebdkar International Centre.

Gehlot said it was the BJP government in Maharashtra that acquired the property in London where Ambedkar resided during his student days.