Modi never read Constitution, hence it is blank for him: Rahul

Nandurbar /Nanded: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks that the Constitution of India is "blank" because he has never read it. Modi would have pursued different policies had he read the country's foundational document, he said at election rallies at Nandurbar and Nanded ahead of the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections.

Gandhi's retort came after Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the Congress leader was showing a copy of the Constitution with blank pages inside at his campaign rallies. In Nanded, the Congress leader was also campaigning ahead of the Lok Sabha byelection, necessitated by the death of sitting Congress MP Vasant Chavan. The Congress has fielded his son Ravindra Chavan while the BJP has fielded Santuk Hambarde. "The prime minister says I show a blank Constitution," Gandhi said in tribal-dominated Nandurbar in north Maharashtra, adding, "The Constitution is blank for him, because he has never read it in his life. He has no idea what is written in it."

In Nanded in central region, Gandhi said the Constitution does not teach discrimination. "If Modi had read the Constitution, he would not have behaved the way he does. Modi waives loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of 25 rich people but not those of the poor and farmers," he added.

Referring to strife-torn Manipur, he said for the first time in the country's history, a prime minister has not visited a state which has been burning for more than a year.

As to BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis questioning the red cover of the Constitution showed by Gandhi at his rallies and connecting it to "urban Naxals", Gandhi said, "It does not matter what colour is the Constitution, whether red or blue, what matters is what is written inside and we are committed to defend and protect it even at the cost of our life."