Preamble is like a person’s parent, it cannot be changed, says VP Jagdeep Dhankhar

The Preamble to the Constitution cannot be altered just like a person cannot change their parents, said Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday.

Speaking at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies in Kerala’s Kochi, the vice president claimed that no country had changed its Preamble, apart from India during the Emergency.

“The Preamble of our Constitution was changed during a time when hundreds and thousands of people were behind bars, the darkest period of our democracy, the Emergency era,” added Dhankhar.

The remarks came nearly 10 days after the vice president said that the addition of the words “secular” and “socialist” to the Preamble was a “sacrilege to the spirit of sanatana”.

Sanatana dharma is a term some people use as a synonym for Hinduism.

On June 28, Dhankhar said that the Preamble is the “soul” of any Constitution and is not meant to be changed or altered.

This itself had come two days after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh called for a review of the inclusion of the works “secular” and “socialist” in the Preamble. The RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The words “socialist” and “secular” were not part of the Constitution adopted in 1950 and were added in 1976 through the 42nd constitutional amendment.

After the RSS’s call, Union ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jitendra...

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