PM behaving like a puppet in the hands of RSS: Cong President Kharge
Bengaluru (PTI): Charging the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with behaving like a puppet in the hands of the RSS, Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday accused the organisation and the BJP of conspiring to distort the Constitution. He also called upon Congressmen and party leaders to face the upcoming Lok Sabha polls with unity and protect the Constitution and democracy.
The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha was speaking after unfurling the national tricolour at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office here on the occasion of Republic Day.
"Probably if there was no Constitution for this country, it would not have been possible for us to save democracy. With lots of effort, leaders of our freedom struggle and the Constituent Assembly members gave this country the Constitution," Kharge said.
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Addressing Congress workers and leaders, he said the Constitution contains important principles like equality, fraternity, secularism and justice.
"The RSS and BJP are conspiring to distort this Constitution and to make changes to it. All efforts are being made by the BJP to destroy or weaken our autonomous bodies one by one. Especially as Modi is behaving like a puppet in the hands of RSS, our judiciary or our secularism is facing the brunt," he added.
State Congress President D K Shivakumar, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other senior party leaders were present.
The Congress party has fought for the freedom of the country, the AICC chief said, but the BJP is claiming to be the "only saviours" of this country. They speak about patriotism and are projecting to the youth that only they are true patriots, and rest all are traitors.
Recalling the struggle by the Congress and several of its stalwarts including Mahatma Gandhi in getting freedom for India, he said, "but today the BJP, the Prime Minister and Home Minister (Amit Shah) are making all efforts to make it the puppet in their hands. So it is important for us to save our freedom and Constitution for the good future of our younger generation."
"If there is no democracy and Constitution, there will be no opportunity for any of us," he added.
Stating that B R Ambedkar on January 26, 1949 had spoken about the importance of good people implementing the Constitution, Kharge said, "what he had said then is coming true today, the people who have to implement the Constitution now are not good, so we are witnessing all that is happening in the country now."
Claiming that there is a threat to the Constitution and democracy, the Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka said inflation and unemployment is rising by the day.
"To control this, in the upcoming elections, you will have to take loyal people into the party and strengthen it. It should not be that they join today and quit tomorrow....Think before inducting someone into the party, and checking their background and ideology is important," he said, adding that the Congress is bound by its ideology.
These comments from Kharge came a day after the former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar rejoined the BJP quitting the Congress. He had joined the Congress, quitting the BJP ahead of the Assembly polls last year on not getting a BJP ticket to contest the elections.
Appealing to Congressmen to stay united to protect the Constitution and democracy, he said: "In the upcoming elections too we have to show our unity. This is my suggestion and instruction to you. I'm confident that you will follow it."
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
