NEW DELHI – CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday termed Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s recent remarks against the basic structure of the Constitution as a “dangerous sign” for the future.
Dhankhar, while addressing the inaugural session of the All India Presiding Officers’ Conference in Jaipur, had said that the Supreme Court had set a wrong precedent by its verdict in the Kesavananda Bharti case of 1973.
Yechury strongly objected to Dhankhar’s comment, saying that it was an unprecedented attack on the judiciary.
He said that the Indian Constitution established the Parliament, and the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary derive their authority and power from the Constitution itself.
He added that the Constitution is supreme and no government exercising its autocracy of majority can undermine the basic structure of “our republic”.
The CPI-M leader added that the Vice President is questioning the supremacy of the same Constitution under which he assumed office.
Yechury explained that the centrality of the Constitution lay in upholding the sovereignty of India, which has been made apparent in its Preamble.
Yechury said that people’s sovereignty cannot be substituted at any point in the thread of the constitutional scheme.
He said that the vision of an ‘intolerant’, ‘fascist’ Hindutva nation is an attempt to destroy the secular and democratic character of the Republic of India, which should be rejected and resisted.
Earlier, senior Congress leader and former Union minister P. Chidambaram, while reacting on the same, had said that all those who loved the Constitution should be cautious of the “dangers ahead”. -IANS
