Former Union minister P Chidambaram on Saturday, 17 November, hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for targeting the Congress, reminding him of the party's legacy by listing the names of its presidents from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family.
A day before, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Chhattisgarh had dared the Congress party to make someone from outside the Gandhi family the party chief at least for five years, for him to believe in Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy. He had also asked the Congress to give an account of what four generations of Gandhi family had done for the nation.
“If you so much respect the democracy, do a small thing. If you claim that because of your principles, your faith in democracy, the Constitution and Pandit Nehru, Modi, a chaiwala, could become the PM, appoint someone good from outside the (Gandhi) family as the Congress president for just five years.”PM Modi
Chidambaram’s Retort
In a series of tweets, Chidambaram gave his rebuttal to the prime minister’s remarks. He listed the names and said the Congress was proud of the humble origins of its post-Independence leaders like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri, K Kamaraj and Manmohan Singh and many others besides thousands others during pre-Independence days.
He asked the prime minister to instead speak on lynchings, rapes, the Rafale aircraft deal, unemployment in the country, and suicide of farmers during his rule.
In a dig at Modi, Chidambaram said he was grateful that the prime minister was "concerned" about who is elected as Congress president and he devotes a lot of time talking about it.
"Will he spend half the time and speak about demonetisation, GST, Rafale, CBI and the RBI?” his tweet read.
(With inputs from PTI)
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