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Lord Ram and Krishna part of our heritage, not Babur and Aurangzeb: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Prasad said that the original Constitution had photographs of Lord Ram returning to Ayodhya with Sita and Laxman after victory in Lanka.

BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad in LS. (PTI)

Senior BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad Saturday hit out at the Congress on the Emergency and also said that the framers of the Constitution knew that Lord Ram and Krishna are the heritage of this country and not Babur or Aurangzeb. Prasad said that the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi needs to change his tutor as he is unaware of facts and suggested that he visit the Cellular jail in Andaman and Nicobar where Veer Savarkar spent 11 years.

Reminding Congress’s allies that SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav were jailed and DMK government was dismissed during the Emergency, Prasad praised The Indian Express and its founder Ramnath Goenka for not accepting the censorship during the Emergency in 1975.

“Electricity of all newspaper houses were cut. Censor manoge to hum manenge (it will be restored when you accept censorship). We will appreciate The Indian Express and Ramnath Goenka because he did not accept (censorship) and remained firm.”

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Prasad said that the original Constitution had photographs of Lord Ram returning to Ayodhya with Sita and Laxman after victory in Lanka, photos of Lord Krishna, Bajrangbali Hanuman, Mahavir, Natraja, Guru Gobind Singh, Chhatrapati Shivaji and Akbar, but not Babur and Aurangzeb. “If the Constitution was framed today, the Opposition would have protested the insertion of such pictures in it,” he said.

Prasad said, “Our heritage is Lord Ram, Krishna, Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Lokmanya Tilak, Narayana Guru, Subramania Bharati and Mahatma Gandhi. Aurangzeb, Babur could never be our heritage.”

Congress MP Kumari Selja said: “There is a conversation about the Emergency. Yes, it happened… And there were injustices… no one is denying that. An election happened and Congress and Indira Gandhi were thrown out. This is the beauty of our democracy that the same Indira Gandhi again became the PM in 1980.”

Lalmani Verma

Lalmani is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, and is based in New Delhi. He covers politics of the Hindi Heartland, tracking BJP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, RLD and other parties based in UP, Bihar and Uttarakhand. Covered the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024; Assembly polls of 2012, 2017 and 2022 in UP along with government affairs in UP and Uttarakhand. ... Read More

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