The BJP on January 27 accused the Congress of being “anti-Dalit”, sharing a screenshot of a now-deleted tweet by Indian Overseas Congress chief Sam Pitroda endorsing Sudheendra Kulkarni’s article posted on social media platform X that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s contributions to the Indian Constitution were more than that of B.R. Ambedkar’s.
Mr. Kulkarni, a former close aide of BJP veteran L.K. Advani, has in the article said that B.R. Ambedkar was not the maker of India’s Constitution and the contribution of late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was far greater in its framing than that of Ambedkar.
Union Minister for Law and Justice Arun Ram Meghwal demanded to know whether the rest of the Congress party shared Mr. Pitroda’s endorsement in the now deleted tweet. “The entire world believes that B.R. Ambedkar had played the main role in the making of the Constitution and Pitroda’s remarks on his contributions are a reflection of the Congress’ mindset of insulting Babasaheb,” Mr. Meghwal said.
“Pitroda is speaking Rahul Gandhi’s language because the Congress and its leaders are not able to digest welfare and upliftment of Dalits under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government,” the Minister charged.
Mr. Meghwal said Ambedkar was the Chairman of the committee set up to draft the Constitution, and when the Constituent Assembly adopted it, one of the members of the drafting panel had said that it was because of Babasaheb that such a big and great Constitution could be drafted.
Mr. Pitroda, in his post, which was later deleted, had said, “Who contributed more to the Constitution and its Preamble? Nehru, not Ambedkar.”
“It is generally believed that Dr B.R. Ambedkar was the father of the Indian Constitution. But this is far from the truth if you examine the facts of history. Now, a study has shown that the contribution of our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was far greater than Dr. Ambedkar. In fact, Ambedkar has himself said that it was not his Constitution,” Mr. Kulkarni told the PTI.
