Those who rejected Nehru’s politics among invitees to Congress event: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP on Monday mocked Congress for seeking to use the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru to rally forces opposed to NDA, saying many of the invitees had rejected the first prime minister when he was alive.
I&B minister Arun Jaitley highlighted the presence of Marxists and Lohiaites who were staunchly opposed to Nehru to say that Congress sought them out because it wanted to mask its “depleted fortunes”.He also said that others who were part of the event would have been ideologically “disinherited”, a remark which, BJP sources said, was meant to question the claim of Congress’s leadership to be the natural political legatee of Nehru.
“Lohia stood for complete negation of Nehruvian politics. He rejected Panditji's politics during his lifetime. The Left's anger against him was further fuelled by the invocation of Article 356 to dislodge the first-ever democratically elected communist government led by E M S Namboodiripad in Kerala,” Jaitely said responding to the presence of leaders of CPM and parties like JD(U) and RJD, which claim to subscribe to Lohia’s thought.
“Those who rejected Panditji's politics in his lifetime are a part of the show of strength at this symposium,” Jaitley said before asking, “Has the guest list been influenced by the current depleting fortunes of the Congress party?”
“The symposium is being attended by some who rejected Nehruvian politics during Nehru's lifetime and others whom he may have ideologically disinherited,” the senior BJP leader added.
Congress left BJP and NDA partners out of the list of invitees for the two-day conference on Nehru where Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a thinly veiled attack on the BJP government.
Besides West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, representatives of the two communist parties and JD(U) and RJD, D P Tripathi of NCP, which broke away from Congress and is supporting the BJP government in Maharashtra, were present at the Nehru function.