Congress president Rahul Gandhi will launch his party’s nationwide ‘Save the Constitution’ campaign on Monday, aiming to highlight alleged attacks on the Constitution and Dalits under the BJP-led regime. The campaign will be launched from Delhi’s Talkatora stadium.

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Seen as the party’s effort to reach out to the community ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the launch of the campaign is expected to be attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Sushil Kumar Shinde among others.

“Rahul Gandhi ji will launch the campaign on April 23 at the Talkatora Stadium. Senior Congress leaders will join him,” said Nitin Raut, chairman of the AICC’s Scheduled Caste cell, in a statement.

The campaign will continue till next year’s April 14, the birth anniversary of Dalit icon Bhim Rao Ambedkar.

The party’s present and former Dalit lawmakers, those holding offices in zilla parishad, civic bodies and panchayat samitis, and office-bearers attached to the  regional units of Congress will also attend the event. The party said the campaign aimed to sensitise the attendees on the current state of affairs with regard to the community.

“The campaign would be taken up at the state-level by the party’s respective SC departments to reach out to the common man at the village level,” Raut said.

“Ever since the RSS-supported BJP came to power at the centre, the Indian Constitution has been under severe attack, in one form or the other, thereby, denying the marginalised sections of society their constitutional rights,” he added.

He added: “The BJP-RSS combine is set to dismantle the social security available for SCs, STs and other weaker sections. The RSS ideology attacks the basic structure of the Indian Constitution. This would be countered by Congress Party.”

Dalits form roughly 17 per cent of the country’s electorate. There are 84 parliamentary seats reserved for candidates belonging to the scheduled castes. The BJP had bagged nearly half of the seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, reflecting on its success in politically key states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The Congress campaign comes at a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is holding “Gram Swaraj Abhiyan” across the country under which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked party MPs and MLAs to spend a night in Dalit-dominated villages.

The Prime Minister’s direction to party leaders came after violent protests erupted in parts of the country after a Supreme Court order allegedly diluted the Scheduled Castes and Schedules Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

(With inputs from agencies)