E-Paper
Pranab slams attempts to vilify Nehru on Partition
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said attempts were being made to vilify Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the wake of Jaswant Singh's book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said it was a malicious attempt to distort history for narrow partisan interests.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said attempts were being made to vilify Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the wake of Jaswant Singh's book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said it was a malicious attempt to distort history for narrow partisan interests.
He also attacked attempts to make out that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, the
progenitor of the latter day Jana Sangh and BJP, and Jinnah had no role in Partition.
Mukherjee made sarcastic references to senior BJP leader LK Advani's controversial visit to Pakistan in 2005
and Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah and said they should explain the psychology behind glorifying Jinnah.
"BJP leaders should explain. When Advani will go to Pakistan, he will discover that Jinnah is secular. Jaswant
Singh suddenly discovered that he was not responsible( for Partition). He wanted a united India. These are not
historically correct," he told PTI in the first high-level reaction from Congress to Singh's book.
"This is mudslinging and vilification. An attempt is being made to vilify Jawaharlal Nehru by accusing him of being
responsible for the Partition of India.
"This is a malicious campaign completely ignoring the facts pertaining to the Partition and an attempt to distort
history for narrow partisan interest," Mukherjee said.
