Congress slams BJP for calling Nehru grandfather of Partition

The Congress on Saturday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party for putting up front page advertisements in a few vernacular dailies in Karnataka, calling the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as the grandfather of India's Partition.

As Rahul Gandhi's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra' (Unite India March) entered the second day in Karnataka, the State unit of the BJP put out an advertisement in some Kannada newspapers which read, “Can the great grandson unite what the ‘grandfather of India partition' did?”

With a map dividing Pakistan and Bangladesh in the middle of Nehru's and Rahul Gandhi's photographs, the advertisement painted in black questions, “Can the unity of India possible from a party, which caused the bloodbath of the citizens only to come to power?”

The BJP alleged that the agenda of ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra' is to disintegrate India.

The Congress took strong exception to the accusation, saying the right wing has always been on the wrong side of the history.

“The BJP gave the advertisement. The right wing ideology has always been on the wrong side of the history. Since they could not write history, they are trying to rewrite history,” the Congress chairman of media and publicity Pawan Khera told reporters.

He alleged that the two-nation theory was first mooted by the Hindu Maha Sabha in its Ahmedabad convention in 1937, which was presided over by Hindutva ideologue Savarkar.

In 1942, the founder of Pakistan Mohammed Ali Jinnah repeated the same in the Lahore convention of the Muslim League, the Congress leader said.

In 1942 when the Congress left all the provincial governments in protest and to participate in the Quit India movement, the Sabha joined hands in alliance with the Muslim League in three provincial Assemblies -- West Bengal, NWFP and Sindh where the first resolution for Pakistan was passed, Khera claimed.

“I challenge them (right wing) that they were in alliance with the Muslim League and they did not stop it. It's clear who partitioned India. They (BJP) are talking to a person whose grandmother divided Pakistan. They (BJP) don't know the history before 1947 and 1971. They don't know their own history,” Khera charged.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah who was present there said the BJP is teaching history to those who brought Independence.

“Which party united all the provinces and made one nation? It's Congress. Which RSS leader participated in the freedom struggle? Did RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar or the second Sarsangh Chalak Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar participated in the freedom struggle? Anybody from RSS died in the freedom struggle? Now, these people are taking history lessons for the Congress,” Siddaramaiah charged.

“Nehru was in jail for nine years. Did he go to jail like Amit Shah did?” Siddaramaiah charged.