On the eve of India's 76th Independence Day, a fresh political war of words broke out between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress objected to an advertisement issued by the BJP government in Karnataka regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign.
The Congress criticised the BJP for excluding India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru from the list of eminent freedom fighters featured in the advertisement. The ones part of the list included MK Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Vinayak Savarkar, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, BR Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and Abul Kalam Azad.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah accused incumbent CM Basavaraj Bommai of being "a slave of RSS". Siddaramaiah accused Bommai of casteism for placing Ambedkar in the second row, and Savarkar in the first row.
Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said that the "unending hatred" for India's first Prime Minister has "reached its zenith".
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that Nehru will survive such "pettiness". He added that what CM Bommai has done is "an insult to his father SR Bommai and his political guru MN Roy" both of whom were "great Nehru admirers".
The BJP was unfazed by Congress' attacks. News agency PTI quoted State BJP General Secretary N Ravi Kumar as saying that Nehru was left out "intentionally".
Kumar said, "When we are observing 'Partition Horrors Remembrance Day' today on the call given by our prime minister, what is the point of using his photograph? Nehru was a person who did not heed Gandhi's call. He was responsible for Partition, which saw massive bloodshed of common people. So, we did not put his photograph."
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