Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has warned the people of India against the designs of the powers that be to change the basic structure of the Constitution not only by striking out its “socialist and secular” character but also imposing a presidential form of government.
Invited as the key speaker at a debate hosted by a media house at the historic Calcutta Club, Banerjee said: she was against bringing a new constitution.
Stopping short of naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his saffron Government Banerjee said that attempts were being made to change the “spirits of the Constitution and bulldoze its federal structure.
“They want to change the very spirit of the Constitution which stands for justice, liberty, equality, fraternity,” Banerjee alleged saying the concept of unity in diversity was being disregarded.
“We have to accept the diversity of culture … its founding fathers had drafted the Constitution by keeping India’s plurality in mind and upheld the spirits of democracy, federalism and secularism in mind … but if someone says that democracy, federalism and secularism are bad than we cannot accept it,” she said.
Alleging that India’s plurality was under threat she said, “there is an effort to impose one nation one election … one nation one food and similar things … this is not acceptable.”
Saying that there was an attempt to throttle the democracy by subjugating the media and influencing the judiciary, Banerjee asked “even ten years did you see the media being purchased and the judiciary being pressurized.”
The media was being “totally controlled by one particular party which I will not name … then the judiciary is also being influenced though not all the judges compromise,” she said adding, “today if I say something against them then Enforcement Directorate will come to my house … today it (government) has become off the Agency, for the Agency and by the Agency,” because the powers that be “do not know the meaning of the hard-earned Independence otherwise they would not have suspended 147 MPs in Parliament.”
She said that in the present system “one man is getting all the publicity … there is the photograph of the Prime Minister on everything --- from ration card to fertilizer bags to the corona vaccine --- I have seen so many Prime Ministers like Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Narsimha Rao ji, IK Gujral and Deve Gowda ji … and have even worked with them but have never seen such a hegemony before.”
Wondering whether plans were being hatched to change the form of Government Banerjee asked “are we going towards the presidential form of Government … I have apprehensions.” She however asserted vouching for her long years of struggle that “there will certainly be an end to this totalitarianism … I am sure there will be an end to this Hitlarian and Stalinist and Agency raj.”
