New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday said the values promoted by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru continue to remain relevant, and secularism was a compelling need without which there could be no India.
Speaking at an international conference organised by the Congress to commemorate Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary, Gandhi made veiled attacks on the BJP, saying Nehru’s life and work had been “drowned out by misinterpretation and distortion in recent years”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not invited to the two-day meet, raising some eyebrows in the Bharatiya Janata Party. The event held by Congress to resurrect Nehru’s legacy at a trying time for the party saw the presence of leaders from many parties.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Communist Party of India-Marxist leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury and Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav were among those present. Many leaders of parties of undivided Janata Dal were there, but no senior Samajwadi Party leader was present.
Foreign leaders present included former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, former Ghana president John Kufuor, Queen Mother of Bhutan Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, former Nepal prime minister Madhav Nepal and former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa.
The event was also attended by leaders from the Communist Party of China.
Sonia said that although Nehru was a socialist by conviction, he valued individual liberty above all else.
She said secularism was an article of faith with Nehru.
“If any person raises his hand to strike down another on ground of religion, I shall fight him to the last breath of my life as head of the government and from outside,” she quoted Nehru as saying.
IANS
