In a massive controversy, senior leaders Tej Pratap Yadav from the RJD and Kamal Nath from the Congress made serious errors in paying tribute to the past heroes who led us to independence.
Coming to RJD’s very own Rahul Gandhi, Tej Pratap tweeted a photo of Bhagat Singh on Azad’s birth anniversary in order to pay tribute to Azad. It seems that Lalu’s successor who harbours the ambitions of becoming the next chief minister of the state of Bihar can’t even differentiate between Azad and Bhagat Singh. Chandrashekhar Azad is a celebrated freedom fighter who led the Kakori train robbery in 1925 and also avenged Lala Lajpat Rai’s death by assassinating JP Saunders at Lahore in 1928.
It is utterly disgusting how a senior leader from a significant regional party made such a faux pas. It goes on to show how parties like this work. They do not act as public bodies but as family enterprises and even if the heir-apparent is clueless about the country’s history, heroes and basics, such heirs remain in command of the party. This act on the part of Tej Pratap Yadav squarely exposes the RJD and raises serious questions about how RJD can even project someone like him as the next chief minister of Bihar. Not only this, Tej Pratap tried to avoid public embarrassment and mislead people by posting a rectified tweet. It is outrageous how he did not tender any clarification or apology but thought of misleading others by correcting his grave error. However, before he knew the damage had been done and his erroneous and embarrassing tweet started doing the rounds. It is important to mention here that, Tej Pratap has never concealed his chief ministerial ambitions and in fact he is in a rift with his brother for occupying the topmost position in the state. It is absolutely pathetic how someone ignorant like him can even remain in active politics.
Another senior leader, this time Kamal Nath from the Congress made a similar blunder. He paid ‘homage’ to Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his ‘death anniversary’ on Twitter. The only problem was that it was not Tilak’s death anniversary but his birth anniversary . Being targeted from several quarters for this grave mistake, Kamal Nath tried to avoid public ire by deleting his tweet, however, the damage was already done. Kamal Nath is not an amateur in politics, in fact, the senior Congress leader has been given charge of handling the party in Madhya Pradesh by party president Rahul Gandhi. Being at such an important position, Kamal Nath failed to distinguish between the death anniversary and birth anniversary of the legendary leader. While the Congress commemorates its own leaders with full responsibility, it makes grave and serious errors when it comes to paying tributes to legendary leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and does not even apologise for its reckless behaviour.
The irresponsible behaviour towards the country’s heritage coming right from the top brass of both the ‘secular’ parties goes on to show how they are ignorant about the country, its history and its heroes. This also reaffirms that succession of party leadership and political legacy is a dangerous trend that must be stopped.
