'Congress Darshan' on its 130th Anniversary!

'Congress Darshan' on its 130^th Anniversary!

Mumbai/New Delhi: The Congress on Monday, 28^th December 2015, sacked Sudhir Joshi, content editor of the 'Congress Darshan' publication, for certain objectionable remarks on Jawaharlal Nehru and party chief Sonia Gandhi, even as Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam apologised. Later the Congress said it was not a party journal and he apologised in his personal capacity.

Kicking off a contraversy 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 Vallabhbhai Patel. It also spoke about Sonia Gandhi's father and marriage and some of her political strategies in the past few years.

What was in the Article?  Here are some extracts:

In the article, which published on the time when National Congress, founded on 28^th December 1885, celebrated its 130^th anniversary, the country's first prime minister was virtually held responsible for the Kashmir and China imbroglios for not paying heed to his colleague Patel's advice on international affairs.

"Though Patel got the post of deputy prime minister and home minister, the relations between the two leaders remained strained and both had threatened to resign time and again," says the article, much to the embarrassment of the party. 

The article also points out how India celebrates Patel's birth anniversary on October 31 as National Unity Day since 2014, forgetting the fact that it was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the Congress alleging it is an intention to eclipse the memory of another icon, late Indira Gandhi whose death anniversary also falls on that day.

"Nehru was in charge of foreign affairs and kept Kashmir with him citing it as an international issue. But today's problems could have been avoided if Nehru had considered Patel's foresight on the issue," the article said, giving a handle to the right wing forces and the BJP who glorify Patel vis-a-vis other Congress leaders of that era.

On the Goa issue, the article points out how Nehru was upset when Patel declared Indian armed forces could free Goa from Portuguese occupation in just two hours.

"Goa would not have had to wait till 1961 for liberation if Patel's suggestion was accepted then."

Focussing on Sonia Gandhi, the article dropped a bombshell by claiming that her father was a member of "Fascist forces" which lost to the Russians in World War II.