The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) often accuses the Congress of toppling state governments when it was in power at the Centre, an allegation that’s a recurring theme in the BJP’s campaign in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. However, on Sunday, the Congress fought fire with fire.
While campaigning in Himachal Pradesh, where the BJP lost the recent assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi accused the saffron party of trying to engineer a split in the ruling Congress and trying to topple the elected government in the state.
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Addressing a public rally, Gandhi said the Union government instead of assisting the state had been making attempts to “steal” power.
The Wayanad MP was referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches in Nahan and Mandi on Friday, where he asserted that the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh would be short-lived.
“The Prime Minister says he will bring down the Himachal Pradesh government through stealing, bribery and corruption,” Gandhi said, accusing Modi of forming “stolen” governments in Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP, however, accuses the Congress leadership in HP of being weak and not getting the house in order. In a recent interview to HT, party president JP Nadda said the Congress chief minister in Himachal Pradesh cannot pin the blame on the BJP if its state unit is in disarray.
“People need to recognise their strengths and weaknesses. In Himachal Pradesh, 9 MLAs voted against you and the chief minister did not even get wind of it. You are on a weak footing, you’ve not been able to keep your house in order, but you’re blaming others,” Nadda said.
Elections to all four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh will be held on June 1 in the final phase of the 2024 general elections.
Uniform Civil Code
Implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) has been a long-standing promise of the BJP, a demand that its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has supported for decades. While Goa and Uttarakhand have implemented the UCC, a pan-India rollout is still in the works.
Union home Minister Amit Shah in an interview to news agency PTI asserted that UCC for the entire country will be rolled out if the BJP is voted back to power.
Shah said the BJP has not relied on religious polarisation to bolster its campaign, but said that if canvassing against reservations for Muslims, over the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir and promising a UCC “appears religion-based”, then the BJP “has done it and will continue doing so”.
“UCC is a responsibility left to us, our Parliament, and the state legislatures of our country since Independence by the makers of our Constitution. The guiding principles decided for us by the constituent assembly include the UCC. And even at that time, legal scholars like KM Munshi, Rajendra Babu, Ambedkar ji had said that there should not be laws based on religion in a secular country. There should be a UCC,” Shah said.
UCC proposes the same set of rules for marriage, divorce, inheritance, financial compensation and adoption, among others, for all communities.
However, given the concerns of the Scheduled Tribe communities across the country, the Centre is considering granting some relief to allow them to carry on their traditions and customs.
Shah pitched UCC as a huge social, legal and religious reform.
