New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday took the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to task for ‘using’ the tragedy of partition for political gains. General secretary of the Congress Jairam Ramesh alleged that the real intent of the Prime Minister to mark August 14 as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ is to use the most traumatic event of history as fodder for his political battles.
Jairam was replying to the Prime Minister’s tweet in which he said, “Today, on#PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay, I poay homage to all those who lost their lives during Partition and applaud the resilience as well as grit of all those who suffered during that tragic period of our history.”
The BJP has negated the truth that it was VD Savarkar who originated the two-nation theory and Jinnah perfected it, Ramesh said. He quoted Sardar Patel who wrote: “I felt that if we did not accept partition, India would be split into many bits and would be completely ruined.”
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“Will the PM also recall today Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the founder of the Jan Sangh, who championed the Partition of Bengal against the wishes of Sarat Chandra Bose, and who sat in free India’s first Cabinet while the tragic consequences of Partition were becoming evident?” he added.
The Congress alleged that the “modern day Savarkars and Jinnahs are continuing their efforts to divide the nation. The Indian National Congress will uphold the legacy of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and many others who were untiring in their efforts to unite the nation. The politics of hate will be defeated.”
The BJP, however, reacted sharply to Jairam’s statement, saying that it was the Congress which was solely responsible for the partition of India.
