The Congress must apologise for tweeting a partial video of Amit Shah’s speech about Dr Ambedkar and then attacking Shah, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Tuesday at Nagpur.
“First of all, the Congress must apologise for tweeting a partial video of Amit Shah’s speech about Dr Ambedkar and then attacking Shah. The Congress wasted the time of the Parliament and now they are wasting the time of the people as well. In fact, after Prime Minister Modi exposed the Congress in Parliament by talking about how the Congress, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the Gandhi family opposed government job reservation quotas which are Constitutional, the Congress has now begun to indulge in drama,” the CM said.
“The same Congress never conferred Bharat Ratna award upon Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. The Congress ensured that Dr Ambedkar would never get voted to the Parliament. It took several years and agitation to construct a memorial at the place where Dr Ambedkar passed away. It was only after Modi became the Prime Minister, and I, as the Chief Minister, approached him, that a piece of land worth Rs 2000 crore at Indu Mill was sanctioned within three days, where a memorial for Dr Ambedkar is being constructed,” Fadnavis said.
“When several Ambedkarite organisations had requested the Congress to ensure that a house located at where Dr Ambedkar studied in London, should not be allowed to be auctioned off, the Congress never bothered to do so. However, after the BJP government came to power, we purchased that house. Whether it is at Mhow, Deekshabhomi or Alipur Road, memorials to Dr Ambedkar were constructed by the BJP and the Modi government. The Congress is merely interested in utilising the name of Dr Ambedkar for political purposes. The Congress never gave any respect to Dr Ambedkar at any time. Even the Bharat Ratna conferred upon Dr Ambedkar was not something done by the Congress,” Fadnavis said.
However, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate stated at a press conference in Indore on Tuesday that the Union Home Ministry and the Union Infotech Ministry had written letters to social media companies like X and Meta, demanding the removal of Amit Shah’s controversial statement on Dr Ambedkar, citing the law, but the companies refused to do so.
She questioned which law was being violated by social media companies by carrying a video of Amit Shah’s statement about Dr Ambedkar. She said that Amit Shah made the statement during his speech in the Rajya Sabha. “Amit Shah himself had said in his speech in the Rajya Sabha that nowadays it has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. If one had taken the name of God so many times, one would have attained heaven. There has been no tampering of his statement. It has been presented as it was,” Shrinate said.
She said that now Amit Shah has to answer why he is not apologising and resigning even after making such a statement, adding that the Congress will take this issue to the public.