"Rahul Gandhi is lying...we have never touched reservations nor we ever want to": Amit Shah

By Suchitra Mukherjee
Haveri (Karnataka) [India], May 1 : Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi over his remarks that the BJP will "tear away" the Constitution if it returns to power and scrap reservations for weaker sections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Congress leader is lying and trying to mislead people as it is scared of BJP's "400 paar" slogan for the Lok Sabha polls.
Amit Shah, who held a roadshow in Haveri, pointed to the large presence of people and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has huge public support and BJP will sweep Haveri and Karnataka.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Amit Shah said that the BJP-led government had a full majority for the last 10 years in two terms and had used it to scrap Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and enact a law against triple talaq.
"Rahul Gandhi is lying. We have had the majority for 10 years now. What did we do to the Constitution? We utilised our majority in scrapping Article 370 and triple talaq, and in strengthening the country. BJP has majority for the past 10 years. He is scared of the '400 paar' slogan and is, therefore, misleading people," he said.
Rahul Gandhi has been accusing the BJP of having plans to change the Constitution which provides reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs.
"The BJP leaders, Prime Ministerji (Narendra Modi) and people in the RSS want to rewrite the Constitution. On one side, they are attempting to rewrite the Constitution, while on the other hand, the Congress party is striving to save the Constitution," Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Chhattisgarh on Monday while holding a copy of the Constitution.
Answering queries, the Home Minister stressed that the BJP won't touch reservations for weaker sections.
He also slammed Congress over "deep fake" videos of his speech having been shared and said it is being done in "desperation".
"People know and understand everything...For 16 years (1998-2004 and 2014-2024), we didn't touch reservations. We don't want to touch it. They (Congress) are desperate so they edited my video and attempted to wrongfully present it to the people," Amit Shah said.
Karnataka has 28 Lok Sabha seats and elections in the state are being held in two phases. Voting for 14 seats concluded on April 26 and the remaining 14 seats will undergo polling on May 7. The counting of votes is scheduled for June 4.
In 2019, BJP almost swept the state by winning 25 out of 28 seats, while Congress and JD-S -- who were running a coalition government in the state -- could only win one seat each.
This time BJP and JD-S are in coalition with the former fighting on 25 seats, while the latter is contesting three seats.