Bikaner:

Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Monday hit out at Rahul Gandhi for his claim that the government was trying to bypass the reservation system through lateral entry, reminding the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha that former prime minister Manmohan Singh was made the finance secretary in 1976 through the lateral entry route.

The minister also dismissed as “baseless” Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that RSS people will be hired as public servants through this mode and pointed out that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who made the system of lateral entry methodical by giving the mandate to UPSC for framing rules. Earlier, he pointed out, there was no formal system in place for such entry into governance.

“Whatever appointments or recruitments or selections are to be done, UPSC will do it. Where is the issue of BJP, RSS in this? Baseless allegations are being made,” Arjun Meghwal told PTI Videos in Bikaner.

He said that RSS is an organisation that promotes cultural nationalism.

The minister alleged that Rahul Gandhi was trying to mislead people and tarnish the image of institutions like UPSC by “spreading lies”.

“The efforts of Rahul Gandhi, who is making such false allegations, are never going to succeed,” he said, adding that despite being the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, which is a constitutional post, Rahul Gandhi was making irresponsible statements.

“Dr Manmohn Singh was also part of the lateral entry. How did you directly make him the finance secretary in 1976?” the minister said.

He said that the then Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia entered service through the lateral entry route. He said CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi was made head of the National Advisory Council. “The prime minister’s is a constitutional post. But is NAC a constitutional body,” he quipped adding Sonia Gandhi was placed above the prime minister.

He alleged the then prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru had opposed reservation in 1961 and as the leader of opposition, Rajiv Gandhi opposed OBC reservation on the floor of Lok Sabha.

“You started lateral entry. Prime Minister Modi made it methodical,” he said.

The minister noted that these are contractual posts. “Suppose an environment expert becomes a deputy secretary, what is the problem… person has to be an expert in a particular field,” he said.

He said the lateral entry is open to all. “Persons of SC, ST and OBC categories also apply. IAS vacancies are different. They claim we are ending reservations. What were you doing when you were recruiting? Suddenly their love for OBCs has come out. They are trying to mislead SC, ST, OBC students,” he said.

Condemning the rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata, he said that the whole country is ashamed.

“After the incident, efforts were made to destroy the evidence. It is a very shameful incident and we condemn it in very strong words,” he said.

Later, Arjun Meghwal, who is an MP from Bikaner, reached a BSF outpost in Khanuwali on the Indo-Pakistan border and celebrated the festival of Raksha Bandhan with women BSF personnel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The absence of the words “socialist, secular” in English copies of the Constitution distributed to MPs yesterday has provoked a massive controversy a day after the special session officially moved to parliament’s new building.

The opposition has called it an “attack” on the Constitution.

Reacting to the charge, Law Minister Arjun Meghwal said the copies featured the “original version” of the Preamble of the Constitution. “When the Constitution came into being, it did not have the words ‘socialist, secular’. These words were included in the 42nd amendment of the Constitution in 1976,” he pointed out.

The comment fueled more protests as the opposition accused the government of sneaking in a big change without following due process. The Hindi copies of the Constitution, however, had the correct version, which raised questions about whether the “change” was inadvertent or deliberate.

“The new copies of the Constitution that were given to us, the one we held in our hands and entered (the new Parliament building), its Preamble doesn’t have the words ‘socialist secular’,” Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, questioning the intentions of the ruling BJP.

“We know that the words were added after an amendment in 1976, but if someone gives us the Constitution today and it doesn’t have those words, it is a matter of concern. Their intention is suspicious. It has been done cleverly. This is a serious matter and we will raise this issue,” he said.

“I doubt their intentions as their heart does not seem to be clear on this,” added Mr Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha.

Binoy Viswam of the CPI-M called the omission a “crime”.

Copies of the Constitution were distributed in a gift bag handed to MPs on the opening day of the new parliament building.

The preamble of the Constitution originally described India as a “sovereign, democratic republic”.

During the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government, several changes were pushed through the 42nd amendment, and this included adding the words “socialist” and “secular” between “sovereign” and “democratic” and changing “unity of the nation” to “unity and integrity of the nation”.

In 1978, many of the changes were reversed but the amended preamble stayed.

In 1994, the Supreme Court said “secularism” is part of the basic structure doctrine, which means that certain basic characteristics cannot be erased.

Once an amendment is notified, the old Constitution should cease to be printed, opposition leaders said. Any change to the Constitution, therefore, would be tampering, they asserted.