Congress to celebrate January 3 as ‘Samvidhan Charcha Divas’ in Uttar Pradesh

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi introduced 42nd amendment in the Constitution of India to add words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the preamble, and changed the description of India from “sovereign democratic republic” to “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”.

Passed by Parliament on 11 November 1976, the amendment commenced from 3 January 1977.

43 years later, the Indian National Congress (INC) is set to celebrate it as Samvidhan Charcha Divas in Uttar Pradesh.

The historical 42nd amendment – which is hailed as the most progressive amendment to the Indian Constitution – faces threat of alteration by the BJP led Central government, alleged Congress.

The minority cell of the UP Congress has asked people to celebrate the amendment day as Samvidhan Charcha Divas by organising seminars, lectures, debates.

Saying that our Constitution is under attack for the last six years, head of the UP-minority cell, Shahnawaz Alam underscored the need to defend it by hailing the  amendment day as Samvidhan Charcha Divas.

“BJP leaders have talked about changing the Constitution. Their idea is to make India a Hindu Rashtra by removing two words – socialist and secular. These two words have proved to be one of the biggest obstacles in their way to convert India in a majoritarian state,” said Alam.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha had, in March 2010, brought a resolution in Parliament seeking removal of the word “socialist” from the preamble. He had moved a private member’s resolution and urged the government to bring an amendment to drop the term.

Sinha in his resolution had argued that since the 42nd amendment was brought when Emergency was imposed and fundamental rights were suspended, the amendment should be declared null and void.

According to Sinha the word socialist has become “redundant” in current scenario.

Six years ago, in 2015 also, the Modi government had created a controversy when an advertisement on the Republic Day, which featured the preamble, omitted the words “secular” and “socialist”.