Gandhi death anniv: Cong cites Nehru, Patel letters to target BJP
Ramesh says both leaders wrote to Mookerjee in 1948 expressing serious concerns over RSS' conduct
The Congress on Friday invoked historical correspondence by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to attack the BJP on Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary, with party MP Jairam Ramesh questioning the ideological lineage of organisations linked to the ruling party.
In a post on X, Ramesh referred to letters written by Nehru and Patel to Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee in 1948, in which both leaders had expressed serious concerns over the conduct and ideology of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS in the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination.
Ramesh said Nehru had written to Mookerjee two days before Gandhi was assassinated, while Patel wrote to him on July 18, 1948, describing the letters as strong indictments of what he called the “self-declared custodians of nationalism”.
Without naming individuals, the Congress MP also targeted a BJP Lok Sabha MP whose past remarks on Mahatma Gandhi and Nathuram Godse had sparked controversy. He said it was revealing that a sitting MP aligned with such views had received the Prime Minister’s endorsement, and referred to a statement in which the MP had said he could not choose between Gandhi and Godse.
Ramesh also shared a link to Nehru’s address on All India Radio delivered on the night of January 30, 1948, hours after Gandhi was assassinated. He said the speech remained a critical historical record of the nation’s response to the killing of the Mahatma.
The reference was aimed at comments made in 2024 by jurist-turned-politician Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who had told a Bengali television channel that he could not “choose between Gandhi and Godse”. Gangopadhyay had said that as a legal professional, he wanted to study Nathuram Godse’s writings to understand what led to Gandhi’s assassination before forming a conclusion.
