A day after RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale sought a discussion on whether the words “socialist” and “secular” should remain in the Preamble, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said “RSS mask” has come off once again, and that the Constitution troubles them “because it speaks of equality, secularism and justice”.

Opposition parties, including the CP(I)M and the RJD, too, condemned Hosabale’s remarks

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“…they want Manusmriti. They aim to strip the marginalised and the poor of their rights and enslave them again. Snatching a powerful weapon like the Constitution from them is their real agenda,” said Gandhi in a post on X. “RSS should stop dreaming this dream – we will never let them succeed. Every patriotic Indian will defend the Constitution until their last breath.”

Congress MP and communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh, meanwhile, referred to the November 25 Supreme Court order which dismissed petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of the 42nd amendment — through which the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ were added to the Constitution’s Preamble the Emergency period in 1976,

Ramesh said these terms have achieved “widespread acceptance, with their meanings understood by ‘We, the people of India’ without any semblance of doubt”.

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“The Chief Justice of India himself delivered a judgment on November 25, 2024 on the issue now being raised by a leading RSS functionary. Would it be asking too much to request him to take the trouble to read it?” he said.

Ramesh said that the RSS and the BJP “have repeatedly given the call for a new Constitution”. “This was Mr. Modi’s campaign cry during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The people of India decisively rejected this cry. Yet the demands for changing the basic structure of the Constitution continue to be made by the RSS ecosystem,” he said.

On Thursday, Hosabale had said, “The words socialist and secular were added to the Preamble. No attempt was made to remove them later. So, there should be a discussion on whether they should remain. I say this in a building (Ambedkar International Centre) named after Babasaheb Ambedkar, whose Constitution did not have these words in the Preamble.”

RJD chief and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad said: “The country’s most casteist and hateful organisation RSS has called for changing the Constitution… They do not have the guts to cast an evil eye on the Constitution and reservations provided therein…”

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said: “Invoking the emergency to discredit these principles is a deceitful move, especially when the RSS colluded with the Indira Gandhi Government during that time for its own survival… To use that period now to undermine the Constitution reflects sheer hypocrisy and political opportunism.”

On November 25, a bench of former Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said Parliament’s power under Article 368 to amend the Constitution also extends to the Preamble and rejected the argument that the words could not have been added retrospectively in 1976 to the original Preamble which has a cut-off date of November 26, 1949.

In a statement, Congress MP and whip in Lok Sabha, Manickam Tagore, said: “The RSS always wanted the Constitution to be attacked, and to be removed… We all know RSS stands for Manuvad and they want to spread hate. They call themselves a cultural organisation, not a political one. We all know the attack on words like secularism and socialism is an attack on the Constitution and parliamentary democracy. We will fight for the Constitution.”