Congress leader Sonia Gandhi launched a sharp attack on the Centre, saying “systematic attempts” were being made to distort and demean the legacy of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Speaking at the launch of the Nehru Centre India at Jawahar Bhawan in New Delhi on Friday, Gandhi alleged that the main objective of the ruling establishment was to destroy the social, political and economic foundations of the country.
" Let there be no doubt whatsoever that the project to vilify Jawaharlal Nehru is the main objective of the ruling establishment today. Their goal is not just to erase him, it is to actually destroy the social, political, and economic foundations on which our nation has been founded and built," she was quoted as saying by ANI.
Gandhi noted that while an ongoing analysis of Nehru’s contributions is a welcome step, the “systematic attempt being made to denigrate, distort, demean and defame” the former prime minister is not acceptable.
“The sole objective of this is not only to diminish him as a personality, his universally recognised role in India's independence struggle and his early decades as a leader of an independent nation challenged by unprecedented problems, but it is also to demolish his multifaceted legacy in a self-serving attempt to rewrite history,” she said.
The Congress leader further claimed that the forces that launched the project to defame Nehru belonged to an ideology that had no role either in the freedom struggle or in the making of the Constitution. It’s an ideology that fanned an atmosphere of hate which ultimately led to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, she added.
“It is an ideology which has consistently rejected the ideals of our founding fathers; it is an ideology with a bigoted and viciously communal outlook. Its approach to nationhood is based on stoking prejudices of all kinds," said the Congress parliamentary party chairperson.