Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden invocation of Jawaharlal Nehru at an election rally in Haryana on Monday, the Congress said the BJP and the RSS had no icons of their own, and so had to borrow them.
“The BJP and the RSS have no leader who participated in the freedom struggle and those that they claim indeed played a part, have a questionable track record,” Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said. As to whether the Congress had apprehensions of the Modi government appropriating Nehru the way it had Gandhi, his response was: “We have no problem in them using our icons.”
However, behind-the-scenes there is some concern that Mr. Modi was trying to grab the spotlight even on November 14 when the Congress first family and the party leadership is usually out in strength to offer tribute to Nehru on his birth anniversary.
Historian Zoya Hasan said there appeared to be a clear intent to reduce both Gandhi and Nehru — who laid the political, ideological and philosophical foundation of modern India – to symbols of cleanliness.
