On Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi responded to Home Minister Amit Shah's criticism of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader probably does not know history and keeps rewriting it.
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, Shah had blamed Nehru for the Kashmir problem, pointing to the mistakes of ordering an untimely ceasefire and taking the issue to the United Nations. Gandhi further remarked that the entire issue seemed to be a distraction from the matter of conducting a caste census and questioning the control over the country's finances.
Asked about Shah’s remarks, Gandhi said, Pandit Nehru dedicated his life for this country. He was in jail for years, Amit Shah ji probably does not know history. I don’t expect that he would know history as he keeps rewriting history. This is all about distraction, basic issue is of caste census and participation, in whose hands is the money of the country going. They (BJP) don’t want to discuss this issue, they are afraid of it and run away from it, the former Congress president told reporters outside Parliament.
Asked about the BJP making tribal and OBC CMs in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Gandhi said, Ours was also an OBC (CM in Chhattisgarh), they have also made OBC (CM in Madhya Pradesh), that is not the issue. The question is what is the participation (of OBCs) within the structure. The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) is an OBC but the government is run by 90 officers. Out of the 90 officers, three are OBCs and their office is in the corner. My point is what is the participation of OBCs in the institutional system, what is the participation of Dalits, Adivasis, that is the main question before the country, he said.
Shah on Tuesday attacked the opposition, saying it is unable to see the change on the ground in Jammu and Kashmir after the scrapping of Article 370 and claimed the entire country has understood that it was Nehru’s “mistakes” on Kashmir that led to the suffering of people of Jammu and Kashmir.