New Delhi: The Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) took a dig at the Congress for the criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru and party president Sonia Gandhi in its in-house publication 'Congress Darshan'.
Speaking to media, senior party leader and Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said that the 'truth it had been hiding has come out and the Congress journal should be called 'Satyarth Darshan' (sight of truth).
Javadekar said the article says had Nehru taken into account the views of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Kashmir situation would not have come to what it was today.
"Patel merged 562 provinces into India and Nehru was in charge of only Kashmir and it remains a problem. Patel had warned about China's betrayal on Tibet... This is not BJP or Javadekar saying so but the mouthpiece of Congress. What Congress had been hiding has come out," Javadekar said.
The Union Minister also said that the article is justifies that Congress belongs to one family.
"The party (Congress) belongs to one family and there is no importance of dissent voice," Javadekar said, adding that the 'Congress had never given due credit to its leaders including prime ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri, Guljari Lal Nanda and PV Narasimha Rao'.
"They did not even allow the mortal remains of Rao to its headquarters, who was responsible for economic transformation of the country," Javadekar said.
He also asked for clarification from the Congress and Sonia Gandhi over the questions raised in the article about her father and marriage and some of her political strategies in the past few years.
"Congress should give clarification and Sonia too should offer some," he said.
Kicking off a furore in political circles, the unattributed article in the publication discussed the manner in which the Kashmir issue was handled by Nehru and his relations with India's first home minister Sardar Patel. It also spoke about Sonia Gandhi's father and marriage and some of her political strategies in the past few years.
Javadekar 'congratulates' Sanjay Nirupam
Rubbing salt in the wound of former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam, who is the editor of the journal, Javadekar congratulated him and said that he was known for such write-ups when he was the editor of the Hindi edition Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Dopahar Ka Saamana'.
Nirupam, who was in Sena before he joined Congress, is also the president of Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, which publishes the magazine 'Congress Darshan'.
Meanwhile, the Congress yesterday sacked Sudhir Joshi, content editor of the 'Congress Darshan' publication, for objectionable remarks on Nehru and Sonia.
Nirupam also promised to take action against people in the editorial panel who were responsible for the mistakes.
