Athawale Slams Congress for Spreading Constitution Change Rumours

Union minister Ramdas Athawale accused the Congress and other INDIA bloc constituents of spreading confusion among Muslims and Dalits by claiming the ruling parties intend to change the Constitution. He reaffirmed that no one can change the Constitution and expressed confidence in BJP and its allies winning over 400 Lok Sabha seats.

Union minister Ramdas Athawale on Friday accused the Congress and other INDIA bloc constituents of making desperate attempts to spread confusion among Muslims and Dalits by saying that the ruling parties will change the Constitution.

He asserted that nobody can change the Constitution.

Addressing a press conference, Athawale, who heads the Republican Party of India (Athawale faction), expressed confidence that the BJP and its alliance partners will win more than 400 Lok Sabha seats in the country, including 75-plus in key state Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 MPs to the Lower House of Parliament. Athawale claimed that in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is losing ground and many of its supporters are now joining the RPI (Athawale).

The Union minister said he has toured 22 states during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls with the last being Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

He said the INDI alliance will neither get majority nor does it have any prime ministerial face. The alliance is on the verge of collapse and it will fall apart after June 4 (when the Lok Sabha poll results will be declared), Athawale claimed.

''The Congress and the INDI alliance partners are making desperate attempts to spread confusion among Muslims and Dalits. They are spreading rumours, but they will not get any success in doing it. No one can change Dr B R Ambedkar's Constitution, but still rumours are being spread among the Dalit community by the Congress and its INDI alliance partners. But attempts to do so have failed,'' he said.

He said the Dalit community is aware that the charge of attempting to change the Constitution is baseless.

The opposition parties have been targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the BJP wants a brute majority of 400-plus seats to change the Constitution in the next term if it comes to power again.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)