New Delhi/Bengaluru: Congress rubbished as “brazen lies” the BJP’s allegations that Karnataka govt has given reservation on religious grounds, with the party filing privilege motions against senior ministers JP Nadda and Kiren Rijiju in Rajya Sabha and deputy CM DK Shivakumar denying he ever spoke about changing the Constitution. The controversy triggered by BJP leaders disrupted Parliament’s proceedings. Congress said the quotas in Karnataka are given on the basis of backwardness.
AICC president and leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, alleged BJP cooked up the claim as part of a “conspiracy” to avoid a discussion in Parliament about corruption in judiciary, alluding to the discovery of cash haul at the residence of Delhi High Court justice Yashwant Verma. Kharge said none of the Congress leaders have spoken about changing the Constitution, which is a dream of BJP and RSS.
Congress chief whip Jairam Ramesh filed privilege notices against Nadda and Rijiju for “misleading” the House on alleged statements made by Shivakumar. In a notice submitted to chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, he said Nadda’s remarks about Muslim reservation and Shivakumar talking about changing the Constitution are “completely false, lack factual basis and have been made with a premeditated motive to defame the Congress and its leaders”. He said Rijiju attributed false statements to Shivakumar which constitutes breach of privilege.
As the row broke out in Parliament on Monday, Shivakumar said BJP and its leaders were resorting to brazen lies to malign Congress, saying he was not present in the assembly when the discussion on the said reservation bill took place and he had never stated that Constitution will be amended to provide quotas on the basis of religion.
Shivakumar said it is the BJP which has been opposing the Constitution while the Congress has worked to protect it. “BJP wanted to change the Constitution and was asking for 400 seats to deny rights to poor and underprivileged. To hide their sins, they are now accusing the Congress and me. Also, reservation in Karnataka is given based on criteria of backwardness,” he said.
“BJP is peeved with the five guarantees of Congress which transfer over Rs 52,000 crore to the poor and underprivileged. The sinister design is to somehow abolish the guarantees, which will never happen and can happen over my dead body. I will continue this fight to defend the guarantees and these conspiracies of BJP will fail decisively,” he added.
DKS QUOTE
I never suggested changing the Constitution to accommodate 4% reservation for Muslims. I’ve been misquoted. I’m a sensible senior politician… I’ve been a member of the assembly for 36 years. I’ve common sense. I never said that [change the Constitution]. Whatever they [BJP] are saying is wrong. I’ll file a breach of privilege on this. BJP has launched a campaign to deliberately mislead people. They always try to misguide the country… They are peddling fake news.
— DK Shivakumar | deputy chief minister