Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have pursued different policies if he had read the Constitution of India.

Speaking at a rally here ahead of the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections as well as the Nanded Lok Sabha byelection, Gandhi said the Constitution does not teach us to discriminate between the rich and the poor.

"Modi has waived loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of 25 rich people, but not the loans of the poor and farmers,'' he claimed, adding that this is not what the Constitution teaches you.

Gandhi also touched upon the ongoing strife in Manipur, and said never in the country's history we have seen a situation where "a state has been burning for more than one year but the prime minister has not visited it." Displaying a red-cover Constitution, he said, "Modi ji says this book is blank. Is it blank? He has not understood the Constitution of India. It is the voice of the country and contains the history and soul of India. You (Modi) have not read it in your life. Otherwise you would not have done what you do." The BJP was working "discreetly" to finish off the Constitution but it would not say so openly because then the entire country would be up in arms against it, Gandhi said.

The Constitution protects the rights of the poor people and the Congress is fighting to protect it, he said.

The country was witnessing a fight between "hatred, anger and arrogance" on one side and "love and brotherhood" on the other, said the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

While people are facing inflation and unemployment, the airports, ports and roads in the country are being given to two big industrialists, he alleged.

Talking about his demand of caste census, he said Dalits account for 15 per cent of the country's population, tribals eight per cent and the minorities 15 per cent, while Backward Classes account for 50 per cent.

"But the 90 bureaucrats who run the central government include one Adivasi, three Dalits, three Backward Classes officers. Which means when it comes to (decision as to the disbursal of) Rs 100, the participation of Dalits is of one rupee, that of tribals 10 paise, Backward Classes five rupees," Gandhi said.

He also asked why the Vedanta Foxconn, Tata Airbus, bulk drugs park and petroleum projects were `shifted to Gujarat', while also attacking the awarding of the Dharavi redevelopment project to an Adani group entity.

A Lok Sabha byelection was necessitated in Nanded in central Maharashtra after sitting Congress MP Vasant Chavan died.

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