Kumar Bahukhandi
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor (File image)
Referring to Tharoor’s essay, Poonawalla said the piece will make RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi uncomfortable
New Delhi: The BJP has used an article by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to sharpen its criticism of the Gandhi family and dynastic politics in the Congress. BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said the article rightly exposes how the Gandhi family turned Indian politics into a “family business.”
While speaking to ANI, Poonawalla said, “A very insightful piece has been written by Dr Tharoor on how Indian politics has become a family business, and in the opening of that piece, he has explained how the first family of the Congress party, the Gandhi-Vadra dynasty, has been responsible for cementing this negative thought that political position and power can be a matter of birthright.”
Referring to Tharoor’s essay, Poonawalla said the piece will make RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi uncomfortable.
“Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi may take his article very personally… Dr Tharoor should be applauded, but now he will get a series of bad words and insults from Kerala Congress and other leaders,” he added.
Earlier, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor criticised “dynastic” politics in India, terming it a “grave threat” to democracy, and said it is “high time” the nation moves towards “meritocracy.”
In an article titled ‘Indian Politics Are a Family Business’ on the Project Syndicate portal, Tharoor called dynastic politics a threat to Indian democracy and argued that India must move to “merit-based leadership” — a view that may be seen as a swipe at the Congress high command and its INDIA bloc allies such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Shiv Sena (UBT).
In the NDA, Tharoor pointed out that the leader of the Lok Janshakti Party, Ram Vilas Paswan, was succeeded by his son, Chirag Paswan.
With just two days left for the Bihar assembly polls, Tharoor wrote that from India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and current leaders Rahul Gandhi and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the idea has been strengthened that leadership in Indian politics can be a “birthright.”
“For decades, one family has towered over Indian politics. The influence of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty — including independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and current opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — is bound up with the history of India’s struggle for freedom. But it has also cemented the idea that political leadership can be a birthright,” he wrote, in a direct attack on the Congress.
He also called out Congress’ INDIA bloc allies over dynastic politics, mentioning Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya Thackeray, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav (son of former Uttar Pradesh CM Mulayam Singh Yadav), and in Jammu and Kashmir, the three generations of Abdullahs.
In Tamil Nadu, he highlighted that Chief Minister M.K. Stalin is the son of the late CM M. Karunanidhi, adding that the family “controls” the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party.
( Source : ANI )
