Kangana Ranaut calls Motilal Nehru names; Congress files complaint with Election Commission

PTI

Shimla, May 4

BJP’s Mandi Lok Sabha seat candidate Kangana Ranaut on Saturday attacked the Congress, saying former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s father Motilal Nehru was the “Ambani” of his time but no one knew from where his wealth came from.

Reacting to her remarks, the Congress filed a complaint with the Election Commission (EC), alleging that she has used “derogatory and insulting” remarks against senior leaders of the party and tried to compare “freedom fighter Motilal Nehru with one of the top businessmen of the country”.

“Motilal Nehru, the father of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was Ambani of his time but no one knows from where his wealth and property came from. He was close to the British, and from where he got the wealth is still a secret,” she said while addressing a gathering at Himachal Pradesh’s Sarkaghat assembly segment.

The segment falls under the Mandi parliamentary constituency. It goes to polls on June 1 along with the three other seats—Kangra, Hamirpur and Shimla—in the state.

Ranaut, an actor, also said that “nobody knows how Jawaharlal Nehru became the prime minister as voting was in favour of (former deputy prime minister) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel”. Since then, this “’deemak’ (termite) of dynastic rule has infected the country”, she said.

“On one hand we have a ‘tapasvion ke sarkar’ (BJP government) and on the other we have ‘bhoogion ke sarkar’ (Congress) made up of small gangs of ‘shehzadas’, one of them is in Delhi and the other is here (in Himachal Pradesh),” she said in an apparent reference to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Virkamaditya Singh.         

Virkamaditya Singh, who is the public works minister in Himachal Pradesh, is the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Rampur. The son of six-time chief minister, the late, Virbhadra Singh and state Congress chief Pratibha Singh has been pitted by the Congress against Ranaut in the Lok Sabha polls.

In its complaint to the EC, the Congress has said, “Kangana Ranaut, speaking at a public meeting at Sarkaghat in Mandi, has used derogatory and insulting remarks against senior leaders of the Congress party and crossed all lines by making comparisons of freedom fighters with businessmen.”       

“She has tried to draw comparisons between freedom fighter Motilal Nehru with one of the top businessmen of the country,” it said.

Ranaut, the Congress in its complaint said, has accused Sanjay Gandhi of “indulging in forcible vasectomy in India”.

The complaint to the EC was issued by state conveners of the Himachal Pradesh Congress legal department, Dhanajay Sharma and Dhiraj Thakur. 

The party said that these are violation of the Model Code of Conduct and personal attack on persons who are no longer alive.

She also used derogatory language against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and even called Congress leader Vikramaditya Singh a “cartoon”, the complaint said and sought restrain on Ranaut from taking part in any further campaigning.

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