Rahul’s speech brings back memories of Feroze Gandhi in Parliament

There were some interesting moments of déjà vu for old-timers at National Herald as they listened to Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Lok Sabha during the debate on the no-confidence motion against the Modi Sarkar. Rahul has levelled serious charges of misdemeanour including businessmen close to Narendra Modi being favoured with deals which is draining the tax-payers’ money.

Few people today know that late Feroze Gandhi, grandfather of Rahul Gandhi who was also the publisher of National Herald and the Hindi Navjivan at one point of time, as a member of Parliament in 1955, brought up the case of corruption against a prominent businessman. This created a big controversy at that time and, finally, his allegations were proved correct.

Then, again in 1958, Parliament was once more rocked when Feroze Gandhi raised the famous Mundhra case which led to the resignation of the then Finance Minister. At that point, the fierce Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari, against whom the young Feroze had raised his voice, had said that was not a fact. However, once again Feroze Gandhi was proved right when the one-member committee appointed by Parliament under retired Bombay High Court Chief Justice MC Chagla looked into the matter and substantiated Feroze Gandhi’s charges.

A lot of jaws had dropped when the nation saw a young son-in-law taking on his father-in-law’s government. But in Parliament, truth has always prevailed.