BENGALURU: The row over Jawaharlal Nehru not featuring in the Karnataka government’s ad highlighting the pantheon of freedom fighters escalated on Monday after BJP said the omission was “intentional” because India’s first PM “caused Partition”.
“Mahatma Gandhi had advised that
Congress
be dissolved after the country attained Independence. But Nehru did not listen to Gandhiji,” state BJP general secretary and MLC N Ravikumar said, claiming this led to Partition. “His portrait was, therefore, intentionally left out of the ad.” Ravikumar accused Congress of glorifying “anti-Hindu” Tipu Sultan by putting up a poster at Bengaluru’s Hudson Circle last week that was vandalised.
Even as the controversy raged, CM Basavaraj Bommai acknowledged Nehru’s contribution to the freedom movement during his Independence Day address. “Innumerable people made sacrifices and laid down their lives in the struggle for freedom,” he said. “The contributions of great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose,
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
,
Bhagat
Singh,
Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad
, Jawaharlal Nehru and many others are etched in history.”
Bommai slammed Congress later for “making a hue and cry” over a state government ad. “For 65 years, you ran the country in Nehru’s name,” the CM said at Bengaluru’s Kanteerava Indoor Stadium. “We have not forgotten Nehru or his work. We have great respect for him. His photo is there in the ad (as part of a sketch).” Bommai also accused Congress of heaping insults on B R Ambedkar.
