‘What has Nehru done to hate him so much?’ Shiv Sena MP questions Central Govt

Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut questioned the Central government about its reason of hatred towards Jawahar Lal Nehru and criticises the Government’s ‘narrow mindset’. He accuses that the exclusion of Nehru’s picture from a poster released by a body of the Union Education Ministry to mark the 75th year of India’s independence,  shows the hatred and narrow mindset of Union Government towards India’s former Prime minister.

 

Mr Raut, in his weekly column ‘Rokhthok’ in Saamana, the newspaper spokestool of Shivsena, also accused that such actions are insult of other freedom fighters , and alleged that it was an act of ‘political vindictiveness’.

 

Those who had no participation in the freedom struggle and creating history are keeping out one of the heroes of the independence struggle. This act, done out of political vindictiveness, is not good and shows their narrow mindset. It is an insult of each and every freedom fighter’, stated Mr Raut, referring to the exclusion of the pictures of Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad from its poster by Indian Council of Historical Research  (ICHR), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education.

 

Rajya Sabha member and the executive editor of Saamana, also pointed out that, one can have differences over Nehru’s policies after independence, but no one can deny his contribution to the freedom struggle. ‘What has Nehru done to hate him so much? In fact, the institutions he built are now being sold to keep the Indian economy moving,’ Mr Raut criticised, while referring to the National Monetization Pipeline . He also claimed that, it was due to Nehru’s ‘sustainable vision’ that the country was saved from economic devastation.

 

Raut, whose party shares power with the Congress and NP in Maharashtra, also pointed out that, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin recently took a decision not to remove pictures of former state CMs Jayalalitha and EK Palaniswami, from school bags which were being distributed free to children in the southern state, displaying political decency. ‘You cannot destroy the immortal contribution of Nehru and Indira Gandhi in nation-building. Those who deny Nehru’s contributions will be called villains of history,’ Mr Raut added.