New Delhi, August 27: 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 campaign 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 L K 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 said 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.
—Agencies