NDA government tried to sabotage Jawaharlal Nehru meet: Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress-BJP war of words over observation of the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru intensified on Tuesday with the former alleging that the NDA government had made “many attempts to sabotage” the two day international conference on Nehru it had organised.

Addressing a press meet soon after the conclusion of the event, Secretary General of the conference and senior Congressman Anand Sharma said, “Written directions were given to Indian missions abroad not to coordinate with international delegates to the conference. Missions were told to convey to queries from delegates that they should directly get in touch with the Congress party. It is unfortunate more so given the conference to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Nehru was not a partisan issue where we were planning any political activity.”

Sharma alleged Congress’ request for using Vigyan Bhavan on November 14 “was rejected even though the venue remained unused that day”. Congress had organised a party function to observe Nehru’s anniversary at Talkatora Indoor Stadium on November 13, a day before Nehru’s birth anniversary.

Sharma accused news channels of blacking out the opening ceremony on Monday. News channels had devoted this time for live telecast of the cultural events that preceded PM Modi’s address at Sydney.