Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that the Lok Sabha elections are a fight to save the Constitution from the ruling dispensation.

Notably, the Congress-led Opposition has been holding that the general elections are meant to “save the democracy and Constitution”, which they claimed are under threat from the ruling BJP.

Holding out a copy of the Constitution during a public meeting at the DDA Ground in GTB Nagar here, the Congress leader said, “It is not just a document, but the ideology, beliefs and thinking of India of thousands of years.”

Rahul Gandhi was campaigning for Congress candidate from the North East Delhi Lok Sabha seat Kanhaiya Kumar.

Attacking the BJP, he said, “The Constitution of India was drafted by Ambedkar ji, Gandhi ji, Jawaharlal Nehru ji and crores of Indians, but the BJP neither accepted the Constitution nor the national tricolour. The BJP always wanted the Indian Constitution to be changed, though they never said it publicly before, but their leaders are openly saying now that they would change the Constitution of Ambedkar if they come back to power.”

He further said, “The BJP and RSS should not dream of changing the Constitution. Reservation, elections, democracy, telecom, public sector, green revolution, white revolution, MGNREGA, etc. happened because of the Constitution, which was drafted due to the efforts of the poor people of the Country, and the people will not allow the BJP to scrap the Constitution.”

“The BJP wants to remove reservation as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had observed that reservation was harming the country, but the Congress manifesto promised to protect reservation, extend reservation beyond the 50 per cent cap,” he added.

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of working for the benefit of only 22 of his rich friends, he said, “Rs 16 lakh crore of their loans were written off at the expense of the people of the country. With this money, loans of farmers for 24 years could have been waived off.”

Referring to the Congress manifesto ‘Nyay Patra’, Gandhi said, “After the Congress and INDIA bloc come to power at the Centre, the Agniveer scheme will be scrapped and regular recruitment in the defence forces will resume. PM Modi had created inequality in the defence forces by dividing it into two categories of soldiers.”

“We will implement Congress’ 5 Nyays and 25 guarantees, which will include payment of Rs one lakh annually to the woman of every BPL family and Rs one lakh apprenticeship to the youth for their first job, besides filling the 30 lakh job vacancies in various Central government offices, and Rs 400 per day wage for MGNREGA workers,” he reiterated.