Modi, BJP desperate to rewrite history: Congress

Congress on Sunday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for attempting to usurp the legacy of Netaji Subhaschandra Bose and accused the BJP and RSS of being “desperate to rewrite history”.

“Modi knows that the Sangh Parivar is bereft of any locus and had absolutely no role to play in the Freedom Movement. So, like a fish out of water, they are desperately trying to appropriate Netaji’s legacy and dragging him into politics,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters in New Delhi.

He was countering Modi's allegations that the Congress had ignored the contribution of India's “virtuous sons” such as Sardar Patel, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Bose in its quest to “glorify one family”.

“Those who do not have their own ideas and idols, and have zero contribution to the national movement, are trying to attribute and appropriate the legacy of our freedom fighters, in an attempt to be perceived as nationalist,” Singhvi said.

He also accused Modi of trying to create an “imaginary rivalry” between Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and Bose in a desperate bid to rewrite history.

Singhvi pointed out that it was Patel who had, in a letter to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, had made it clear that the activities of the Hindu Mahasabha were a clear threat to the existence of the government and the activities had not died down, despite the ban.”

Dismissing any rivalry between Bose and Nehru, the Congress said that Nehru was one of the lawyers to defend the Indian National Army, raised by Bose, during the public trials at Red Fort.

Congress' chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala hit out at Modi claiming that the BJP's icons such as Veer Savarkar acted as “British stooges” while Bose “lit the fire of the freedom movement.”