NEW DELHI: In a big claim, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha and senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has said that the words “secular and socialist have been removed” from the Preamble of the Constitution of India.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged that the new copies of the Constitution that were provided to the MPs on the first day at the new Parliament building, “did not have the words secular and socialist in the Preamble”.
“The new copies of the Constitution that were given to us today (September 19), the one we held in our hands and entered the new Parliament building, its Preamble doesn’t have the words ‘socialist secular’,” said Chowdhury while speaking to news agency ANI.
He said: “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.”
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“Their (government) intention is suspicious. It has been done cleverly. It is a matter of concern for me. I tried to raise this issue but I did not get an opportunity to raise this issue,” the senior Congress leader said.
Earlier on Tuesday (September 19), Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was seen reading the Preamble of the Constitution in Parliament.
Notably, he did read out the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ while reading the Preamble.
“This Constitution is no less than Gita, Quran and Bible for us. Article 1 says, ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states’. It means that there is no difference between India and Bharat. It will be better if nobody tries to unnecessarily create a rift between the two,” he said.