With the elections coming closer, a depleted Congress seems to be resorting to its favourite barb that Prime Minister Modi has mistreated his political mentor, L.K. Advani. Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Modi of insulting ‘mentor’ L.K. Advani. This baseless accusation was made by Rahul Gandhi while addressing almost 15,000 booth-level workers along with Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam.
The Congress president accused PM Modi of insulting Advani. He stated that “everybody knows who is the guru and mentor of Modi — LK Advani. But the Prime Minister doesn’t accord respect to him even at official functions. It is me who follows protocol and I am always with him (Advani) during (such) events.” He further stated that ‘I feel very sad for Advani’ and claimed that Congress had given him more respect than PM Modi had.
The Congress president further stated that the Congress had fought and defeated Advani in 2004 and 2009 elections. This accusation that the BJP has sidelined Advani is not new. Congress, its news traders and the entire leftist cabal has been trying to corner the BJP over this issue ever since PM Modi had emerged in a big way at the national level. However, this strategy has failed to yield any remarkable results for the Congress and its related ecosystem. Even before the 2014 general elections, select media outlets known for their ideological bias had claimed that BJP had become Modi-centric and that he has constantly sidelined party veterans like LK Advani. However, this carefully concocted lie could not help the Congress in sailing through and the BJP went on to score a landslide victory in the 2014 elections, despite all the propaganda.
The BJP has meanwhile called out Rahul Gandhi’s lie. Reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s remarks, BJP spokesperson, Anil Baluni said that Rahul Gandhi was practising the “lowest form of politics”. The BJP has expressed anguish about how the president of the oldest political party in India can stoop to such low levels. Exposing Rahul Gandhi over his allegation that PM Modi had insulted his guru (Advani), the BJP spokesperson made it clear that Gandhi has no links with India’s political and social norms.
Baluni brought to the fore how Congress leaders had recently criticised party veteran and former President of the country, Pranab Mukherjee over attending an RSS event. While the Congress president is talking about respecting Advani, what has it done to Pranab Mukherjee who is not only a party veteran but also the former President of the country? The BJP has made it clear that Rahul Gandhi should not give lectures on political values. He is the president of a party whose leaders had torn to pieces the clothes of its then president Sitaram Kesari and thrown him out of office. All this was done in order to elevate Sonia Gandhi as the party president. The BJP spokesperson also cited the mistreatment of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao to drive his point home. It is clear that Rahul Gandhi and the Congress do not care for Advani. They are using him as a mere political tool and show fake angst over alleged mistreatment of the veteran whenever elections are around the corner.
Rahul Gandhi is raking up Advani in order to make political jibes. However, he should take a look at his own party which has a history of mistreating its top leaders and veterans. The Gandhi family in particular goes to any extent in taking revenge even if it is in the form of a feud with a party colleague. More than five decades earlier, similar treatment had been meted out to popular Congress leader and India’s first Home Minister Sardar Patel. This goes on to show that Nehru-Gandhi family takes intra-party rivalries in the most personal and bitter manner. The way Congress had closed its gates to the mortal remains of Narasimha Rao shows what the Congress stands for. The Congress claims that it respects senior leaders and statesmen across the political spectrum, however, the Gandhis have not paid a single courtesy visit to the Dalit President of the country, even though it has been a year since he assumed office. Given its track record, the Congress and its president should refrain from making claims of maltreatment within the BJP.