Bid to ‘erase Nehru’ will weaken nation: Sonia

Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Friday warned against attempts to “vilify and erase” Jawaharlal Nehru, saying these were part of a larger design aimed at “destroying the social, political and economic foundations” on which our nation has been founded and built.

Addressing an event to launch the Nehru Centre India at Jawahar Bhawan, Gandhi said groups involved in the attack on Nehru subscribe to an ideology that “had no role in the freedom movement or in drafting the Constitution” and one that “fanned hatred leading to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination”.

She asserted that a “bigoted and communal outlook” drives these forces and alleged that the ruling establishment was leading a systematic campaign to distort denigrate, demean and defame Nehru. “The objective of this is to demolish his multi-faceted legacy in a crude and self-serving attempt to rewrite history,” she alleged.

She also called for a collective pushback, urging citizens to “stand up and confront” what she described as deliberate historical misinterpretation and propaganda. The defence of Nehru’s legacy, she emphasised, was not an act of nostalgia but a commitment to reclaiming India’s constitutional vision, rational discourse and modern character.