NEW DELHI: Even as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi paid tribute to former Congress president Sitaram Kesri for the first time at the old party headquarters on his 25th death anniversary, the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seized the opportunity to target the grand old party, recalling how Kesri was locked up inside the bathroom and how he was manhandled.
Rahul Gandhi, who has been talking about the rights of Dalits, the backwards and the downtrodden, remembered Kesri—who has been binned to insignificance in party history by paying floral tributes.
Kesri was unceremoniously ousted as party president in March 1998 during a CWC meeting, with a resolution to strip him of his president post and to pave the way for Sonia Gandhi. The party now sees remembering him as a smart electoral move as he promoted the politics of social justice. Kesri, who hailed from Bihar, served as Congress president from 1996 to 1998. He died in 2000 at the age of 81. A Congress delegation had gone to Dhanapur where his body was cremated in 2000. Kesri had worked with stalwart leaders from Bihar who went on to become state chief ministers, including Bhagwat Jha Azad.
Before his ouster as party chief, Kesri had sensed that something was off when he arrived at the party headquarters on March 14, 1998 for a contentious meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) organised by leaders such as the late Pranab Mukherjee. The meeting was followed by some party workers booing him and even trying to pull off his dhoti while he was trying to return home in his damaged car. Some accounts said that he was even locked up inside a bathroom for hours.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at the Congress for remembering Kesri just ahead of the Bihar polls. “Kesri hailed from a backward class and rose to become the Congress president. But at the instance of the parivar (Gandhi family), he was humiliated,” the Prime Minister said. “The… country can never forget the manner in which Kesri was humiliated by this Congress family. Today reminds us what the Congress can do to snatch the rights of Dalits and backwards. Only the family matters for that party. You may have seen on TV, Sitaram Kesri, who was the pride of our Bihar, how this family locked him up in the toilet. Not just this, he was picked up and thrown on the footpath and the family stole the Congress presidentship from him,” he asserted.
Former Bihar Congress chief and Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh hit back at the BJP, saying, “We have been honouring our leaders for decades. We are not like BJP, who remembers its leaders only during polls.” He was apparently accusing the BJP of remembering Karpoori Thakur only during polls. He also said that “should we pay floral tributes to BJP ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay or Hedgewar instead of remembering our own leaders?”
Thakur, a great socialist leader, was accorded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award last year.
