BJP has dusted off the past to corner Congress, which has gone aggressive in last one week against the government on the LAC skirmish in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives on June 15 night.
When addressing the virtual Telangana Jansamvad Rally on Saturday, BJP chief J P Nadda reminded Congress of 1962 Indo-China war asking “who had knelt down before the China”, the party was following a pattern of taking a peak in Congress' past to browbeat it in the face of mounting criticism.
Nadda also reminded the Congress about how BJP’s earlier avatar Bhartiya Jana Sangh had backed the Congress government in 1948 (Indo-Pakistan war over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir), 1965 (first full scale Indo-Pak war( and 1971 indo-Pak war leading to liberation of Bangladesh).
The BJP is aware of the soft underbelly of the Congress due to these past events and has used it to the hilt to counter Congress' criticism from time to time.
BJP has repeatedly raked up the 1962 Indo-China war that happened during the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru, the imposition of Emergency in 1975 by Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 during Rajiv Gandhi’s Prime Ministership as well as the 1985 Shah Bano case also during the latter’s tenure to take the wind out of the Congress campaign against its governments on issues like national security, suppression of dissent, communal riots and communalisation of politics.
BJP has on many occasions also taken up with gusto how Congress “allowed” the division of the nation in 1947. The latest was December last year, Home Minister Amit Shah while introducing CAA, held Congress responsible for partition on religious lines, a charge he repeated even in pro-CAA rallies in January 2020. This was after Congress leaders raised questions about the intent of the bill.
In March 2014, when UPA was still in power, a section of the confidential Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 Indo-China war became public. BJP had mounted a massive offensive questioning India’s defence preparedness during Nehru’s time and pressed for making the classified document public. This was just two months before the nation was going for a general election.
On the 44th anniversary of Emergency in June 2018, less than a year before 2019 Lok Sabha plans, the BJP lined up a plan to observe it in a big way attacking Congress for the episode and honouring those who valiantly fought against Emergency. .
The same strategy, the BJP had applied to silence the Congress whenever it tried to put the BJP on mat on 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, rushing its leaders to highlight the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the infamous statement of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes a bit” made in the aftermath of the riots.
In the middle of 2019 Lok Sabha poll campaign, BJP has taken strong objection to ‘hua to hua’ remark of Congress’ Sam Pitroda on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and made it a campaign issue. In 2015 Bihar polls, Modi reminded the Congress of ‘lakhs of Sikhs massacred in Delhi on November 2 in 1984 and slammed it with “door maro doob maro” remarks for “giving a lecture on the issue of intolerance.”
1984 riots also came into political discourse five months back in assembly elections from Delhi as well.
Hitting back at Congress over its 'opposition' to the triple talaq bill, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in Rajya Sabha asked Congress to introspect why it was on a decline after winning 400 plus seats post bringing the law to overturn the Supreme Court judgement on maintenance in the Shah Bano's case in 1986.