BJP, Panthers Party bicker over claim to Mookerjee legacy

JAMMU: Even as the BJP ministers in the coalition government have deliberately shied away from paying tributes to the “founding father” of the party Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, leadership of the saffron party is indulging into a war of words with the Panthers Party over his legacy.

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 24

Even as the BJP ministers in the coalition government have deliberately shied away from paying tributes to the “founding father” of the party Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, leadership of the saffron party is indulging into a war of words with the Panthers Party over his legacy.

On October 21, 1951, Mookerjee had founded the Jana Sangh, which is today’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Mookerjee attained “martyrdom” for complete integration of J&K with the Union of India.

To chide the BJP for “abandoning” its founding father, Panthers Party leaders went all the way to Madhopur in Punjab to pay tributes to Mookerjee on his death anniversary on June 23.

Rebuking the BJP leaders for betraying the legacy of Mookerjee, Panthers Party leader Harsh Dev Singh said that the party had lost all moral authority to pay homage to the great leader. He said the BJP leaders used the name of Mookerjee and his ideology for garnering votes in the elections but once in power, they abandoned his principles. He said that BJP had not only endorsed the separate Constitution of J&K but had discarded the demand for abrogation of Article 370 for which it had been calling for in the last seven decades.

A day after Panthers Party paid tributes to Mookerjee, the BJP today reacted strongly, saying that Panthers Party leadership had finally discovered that Mookerjee was a great nationalist leader of the country.

“It is a matter of satisfaction that Panthers Party members have paid tributes to the great leader on his death anniversary and endorsed the Praja Parishad’s struggle of 1953 of ‘Ek Nishan, Ek Vidhan, Ek Pradhan’ and what it stood for since then,” said Narendra Singh, general secretary of the party. He said that legacy of Mookerjee formed the part of BJP’s historical struggle for integrity and strong India.

However, BJP ministers in the coalition government skipped the function to observe death anniversary of party’s founding father.

Although a function was held at newly constructed BJP headquarters which has been named as “Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Bhawan,” all elected representative, including Lok Sabha members, Rajya Sabha member and 26 MLAs skipped the event.