Syama Prasad Mookerjee was part of govt with Muslim League: Congress hits back at Modi

The Congress hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday over his remarks that the opposition party's Lok Sabha poll manifesto bears a Muslim League imprint, saying he "does not know his history" as Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee himself was part of a coalition government with the League in Bengal in the early 1940s.

The Congress also accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of practising the "politics of divisiveness" and claimed that the prime minister is indulging in "diversionary tactics".

Addressing an election rally in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said the Congress manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls bears a Muslim League imprint while a part of it is dominated by the leftists.

Reacting to his remarks, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, "The prime minister does not know his history as it was, in fact, none other than Mookerjee, the president of the Hindu Mahasabha then, who was himself part of the coalition government in Bengal with the Muslim League."

The Hindu Mahasabha was also in a coalition with the Muslim League in Sindh and North-West Frontier Province, he added.

"It is the BJP, not the Congress, that believes in and practises the politics of divisiveness," Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi.

In a post on X, he said: "The centrepiece of the Nyay Patra is the Paanch Nyay: Yuva Nyay, Nari Nyay, Kisan Nyay, Shramik Nyay and Hissedari Nyay. The Prime Minister has made himself clear today: in the struggle between Nyay and Anyay, he is a votary of Anyay.

"India and Indians will vote decisively for mukti from the Das Saal Anyay Kaal!" the former Union minister said.

In a video statement, Ramesh alleged that Modi wants to divert attention from the condition of youngsters, women, farmers and labourers in the country as well as the last 10 years of "injustice".

The prime minister's attack on the opposition party came a day after it released its Lok Sabha poll manifesto, focusing on five "pillars of justice" and 25 guarantees under those, at the Congress headquarters here in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Right to apprenticeship, a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), a nationwide caste census and scrapping the Agnipath scheme for short-term military recruitment are among the promises made by the Congress in the manifesto.

The Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held in seven phases starting April 19 and the counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.