Constitutional institutions not personal property of PM Modi, says Rahul Gandhi
Wayanad (PTI): In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said that the Constitutional institutions of the country are not his personal property but belong to every single Indian citizen.
Accusing the ruling BJP at the Centre of attempting to capture all the Constitutional institutions of the country, he said the upcoming Lok Sabha polls is a fight between those who want to protect the Constitution and those who want to destroy it.
He was addressing party workers and voters after taking out a roadshow in Vellimunda in this high range constituency.
He said the Constitution is the document that protects the rights of all Indians regardless of the language they speak, the community they are from, the religion they practice and the state they belong to. Everybody is the same in the eyes of the Constitution, he said.
"You understand very well that the BJP is attempting to capture all the (Constitutional) institutions of our country, one by one," he alleged.
Whether it is the judiciary, Election Commission, CBI, ED, Income Tax department or the high bureaucracy, the RSS is infiltrating these systems by putting their men, he further charged. And on the other side, there is the INDIA bloc which believes that these institutions belong to India and not to any one organisation, he said.
"These institutions are not the personal property of the Prime Minister. They are the property of every single Indian citizen," Gandhi asserted.
He said that every now and then, some BJP MP says that they would change the Constitution.
"Let me make it very clear, the Congress party will not let the RSS change the Constitution of India," he said.
Gandhi further said that it is the duty of the Congress party to protect every single Indian regardless of their community, religion and state. This is the sacred duty of the Congress party, he added.
The Congress leader came here today to launch the second phase of his election campaign. He had kicked off the poll campaign in Wayanad early this month by filing his nomination papers and holding a massive road show. Gandhi won from Wayanad with a record margin of 4,31,770 votes during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Polling in Kerala's 20 Lok Sabha seats will be held on April 26.
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BJP's Pravesh Wahi elected MCD mayor
New Delhi (PTI): BJP councillor from Rohini East, Pravesh Wahi, was elected mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Wednesday.
Wahi secured 156 votes, with 14 councillors of the Indraprastha Vikas Party backing him. Congress candidate Hazi Zaraf received nine votes.
BJP councillor from Anand Vihar, Monika Pant, was elected deputy mayor with 156 votes.
Jai Bhagwan Yadav from Begumpur and Manish Chadha from Paharganj were elected to the standing committee from the BJP, while AAP councillor Jalaj Chaudhary from Shalimar Bagh was also elected to the MCD panel.
On being elected mayor, Wahi thanked Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the BJP leadership, saying, "We will clean Delhi in the coming months. We will work for the development of Delhi."
The electoral college for this year's mayoral election comprised 273 votes, including 249 councillors, 14 MLAs nominated by the Delhi Assembly, seven Lok Sabha MPs and three Rajya Sabha members from Delhi. A candidate required 137 votes to win.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) abstained from the mayoral polls. Earlier, the party's Delhi unit president Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a statement that the move would allow the BJP to take charge of the civic body and help AAP "expose" the ruling party on governance.
"Despite having power at all levels, the BJP has failed to bring about any change in Delhi. The BJP does not know how to perform. Only AAP knows how to work," Bharadwaj said.
Earlier, AAP controlled the mayoral post, with Mahesh Kumar Khinchi winning the election in November 2024 by just three votes.
The three civic bodies -- East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) -- were reunified into a single entity on May 22, 2022, as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
