New Delhi, 18 September (H.S.): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday hit back at a social media post by Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. BJP MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi questioned Gandhi’s understanding of political history, arguing that he was unaware of the circumstances surrounding the formation of the political parties he had cited while criticising the BJP.

In his post, Gandhi had referred to the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), accusing the BJP and the Election Commission of engineering divisions within political parties and subsequently taking away their election symbols.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, Trivedi said there had already been criticism of Gandhi’s understanding of the country, society, culture and religion, but his latest remarks, according to him, suggested that Gandhi was also unfamiliar with the political history of his own party.

Trivedi said Gandhi had accused the BJP of dismantling the Shiv Sena, NCP and TMC, while, according to him, the circumstances surrounding the formation of these parties were also connected to the political history of the Congress.

He said Gandhi should examine the political legacy of his own party and the history of organisations that emerged after breaking away from the Congress.

Trivedi pointed out that the NCP was founded by Sharad Pawar in 1999 after he separated from the Congress. He also noted that Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress in 1997 after leaving the Congress. He claimed that the TMC subsequently weakened the Congress’s political position in West Bengal.

The BJP leader argued that allegations against another political party should be made only after taking into account the history of political organisations and the circumstances in which they were formed. He linked Gandhi’s remarks to what he described as a lack of understanding of the Congress’s own political history, saying that invoking parties formed after separating from the Congress to question the BJP also raised questions about the Congress’s political past.

Earlier on Friday, Gandhi had mentioned the Shiv Sena, NCP and TMC in a social media post while accusing the BJP and the Election Commission of dividing opposition parties and subsequently freezing their election symbols.

The exchange between the two parties comes amid the ongoing political dispute over the Election Commission’s interim decision concerning the TMC’s name and election symbol ahead of the upcoming by-elections in West Bengal.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar