New Delhi: The Congress launched an all-round attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his recent remarks comparing the Congress’s election manifesto to one that bears the imprint of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League and of the Communists.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X (formerly Twitter) recalling that it was the BJP’s ideological guru Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha that formed a government in pre-independence Bengal, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in coalition with the Muslim League.
“Modi-Shah’s political and ideological ancestors supported the British and Muslim League against the Indians in the Freedom Struggle,” Kharge said.
He continued: “Modi-Shah’s ideological ancestors opposed Mahatma Gandhi’s call for “Quit India” in 1942, which was the movement chaired by Maulana Azad. Everyone knows how Prasad Mukherjee formed his governments in Bengal, Sindh and NWFP in the 1940s in coalition with the Muslim League.
“Did Shyama Prasad Mukherjee not write to the then British Governor about how the Quit India movement of 1942 can be “combated” and how the Congress should be suppressed? And for this, he said that “Indians have to trust the British.”
Modi-Shah’s political and ideological ancestors supported the British and Muslim League against the Indians in the Freedom Struggle.
Even today, they are invoking the Muslim League against the ‘Congress Nyay Patra’ guided and shaped according to the aspirations, needs and…
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) April 8, 2024
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Monday (April 8) said that the BJP, fearing a loss in the Lok Sabha polls, has gone back to the “same cliched Hindu-Muslim script”.
The Congress has been saying that the BJP will not cross 180 seats in the upcoming polls.
“The PM’s love for Muslim League has resurfaced,” Shrinate hit back.
“After being in power for ten years, when the country is at the brink of elections and the prime minister has to show his report card and ask for votes, he is nervous. He has once again resorted to the same cliched Hindu-Muslim script,” she said according to the Press Trust of India.
Shrinate defended the Congress manifesto and said it was a document based “on the five pillars of justice”, “has an indelible imprint of the people of the country” and articulated “aspirations and challenges of the crores of people who met us during the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra”.
“It has the imprint of ten years of broken spirits and the emergence of a new hope, it has the imprint of youth, it has the imprint of farmers, it has the imprint of women, it has the imprint of workers, it has the imprint of those people who are on the margins of society and we will ensure their participation and greater representation,” PTI quoted Shrinate as saying.
She added that the party manifesto is a solution-oriented document and not a jumla like “Modi’s Guarantees” that have a 10-year-record of non-fulfilment.
“By stealing the word guarantee, no one will listen to you, Modi ji. Today the country is seeking a report on your earlier ‘jumlas’ – so don’t be distracted and get ready to pack your bags,” she said.
“These are the same people who stood with the British even during the great struggle for independence, and who left no opportunity to create communal rift along with the Muslim League.
“Remember, when in 1942, on the call of Mahatma and during the presidency of Maulana Azad, the country agitated in ‘Quit India Movement’ and had vowed to do or die, Syama Prasad Mookerjee was not only running his government in Bengal, and his like-minded people in Sindh and NWFP in collaboration with the Muslim League, but was also writing to the British giving advice on how to suppress this mass movement.”
PTI cited Shrinate as saying that the BJP and its ideological gurus have a deep affection, admiration and affiliation with the likes of the Muslim League and the British.
On April 6, Modi called the Congress manifesto a “bundle of lies” and said “every page [of it] reeks of breaking India into pieces”.
“The Congress manifesto reflects the same thinking which was in the Muslim League at the time of Independence, and Congress wants to impose those thoughts on India today … Its manifesto has the stamp of the then-Muslim League,” the Indian Express quoted him as saying.
Modi added: “And what little remained in this Muslim League manifesto has been captured by Communists. One cannot spot the Congress at all in this [manifesto]. Such a Congress as exists today cannot take India forward in the 21st century.”
It is unclear how the prime minister reached such an understanding, as the Congress manifesto is divided into different sections, addressing what it believes are the real concerns of naari (women), kisaan (farmers), yuva (youth), and shramik (workers).
The manifesto anchors itself on the question of justice of these sections, and promises their proportionate participation in decision-making.
