New Delhi: Opposition’s vice presidential candidate B Sudershan Reddy on Wednesday said he will make every possible effort to defend and protect the Constitution of India, as he met leaders of Left parties including CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby.
Reddy, who has been meeting Opposition leaders ahead of the September 9 vice presidential poll, visited the offices of the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) here.
At the Harkishan Singh Surjeet Bhawan, CPI(M) general secretary Baby welcomed Reddy, and remembered Surjeet as the “architect” of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by the Congress, which had outside support of the Left parties.
Baby said Surjeet played a very important role in the fight against “authoritarian and fascist forces”.
“Everybody says Harkishan Singh Surjit was the architect of the UPA government... And of course, later on there were political differences and all that,” Baby said.
“Today our country is faced with an authoritarian regime, which takes neo-fascist tendencies of late... This is a very important political, ideological, cultural struggle that we are participating in the form of the entire Opposition coming together to feel one of the outstanding sons of our country, Justice Reddy Garu, whose contributions, whose legacy is well known,” he said.
“So we are very proud that CPI(M) is part of this joint move of the Opposition to field a highly competent and eligible citizen of our country to defend India’s constitutional values, to defend the idea of India which is systematically assaulted and eroded by the powers that be,” he said.
Baby also said that if members of Parliament want to defend the values of Indian Constitution to have India as a secular democratic republic aiming for developing an egalitarian society, majority of them would vote for Reddy.
Reddy held a copy of the Constitution, and said, “I would express myself not through my speech but one small gesture of mine which I have been carrying with me for the last 52 years, that is the Constitution of India as by law established”.
“I will make every possible effort to defend and protect the Constitution of India,” he said.