The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) updated its profile picture and cover image on X (formerly Twitter) a day after PM Narendra Modi assumed the office on Monday. The cover image grabbed the attention as it shows Modi paying respects to the Constitution of India during the NDA Parliamentary Party meeting at Samvidhan Sadan in New Delhi.
On Friday, Modi touched a copy of the Constitution of India, kept in the central hall of Parliament, with his forehead. This gesture was seen as an attempt to counter the opposition’s claim that the BJP would abolish the Constitution if voted to power with a two-thirds majority.
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Reacting to the new cover image, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “This is the direct impact of Rahul Gandhi’s singleminded focus on protection of the Constitution as the defining issue of the 2024 elections.”
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi latched on to the BJP’s ‘400 par’ slogan and led an aggressive campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming that the saffron party would abolish the Constitution if voted to power with a two-thirds majority. Gandhi’s campaign was also helped by some BJP leaders, including Faizabad candidate Lallu Singh, who asserted that 400 seats in Lok Sabha were needed to introduce wholesale changes in the Constitution.
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Rahul Gandhi’s speeches in almost all his public meetings were centred around saving the Constitution.
“The ultimate aim of Narendra Modi and BJP is to end Baba Saheb’s Constitution and snatch away the rights and reservation from the deprived. On the one hand, government jobs are being eliminated by using blind privatisation as a weapon, which is a way to end reservation through the backdoor,” Gandhi said at a rally on May 28.
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Political observers believe that the opposition’s campaign around the Constitution forced the Dalit and OBC voters in Uttar Pradesh to drift towards the opposition INDIA bloc.
BJP ally and the NISHAD party chief Sanjay Nishad said, “The slogan 400 plus seats by the BJP created unease among the OBC and Dalit voters as the narrative played by the SP and Congress that BJP was aiming for 400 seats to amend the Constitution caught their imagination.”
Former BJP state unit president Laxmikant Bajpai echoed a similar sentiment and said that ‘Save Constitution’ and reservation campaign launched by the opposition created confusion among the OBC and Dalit voters.
