Usually quiet Sonia hits out at Modi’s speech

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who rarely speaks in the Lok Sabha, on Wednesday seized the opportunity of commemorative discussion on the Quit India movement to hit out at some of the BJP''s idols like V D Savarkar for opposing it.

“We must not forget that there were some organisations and persons who were opposed to the Quit India Movement launched on Mahatma Gandhi’s call. Such elements had no role in securing the freedom,” she said in a 9-minute speech in Hindi.

Though she did not explicitly name any leader or party in her remarks, RSS seemed to be the likely target, as the Congress has often accused it of playing no role in the freedom movement, a charge its leaders always deny.

Neither Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan nor Prime Minister Modi, who spoke before her, even once referred to Jawaharlal Nehru. The Speaker referred to the Quit India resolution adopted in a meeting at Gwalia Tank ground in Mumbai in 1942, but did not say it was a Congress session.

Sonia specifically asserted that the resolution was adopted in the AICC session on August 8, 1942 on Mahatma Gandhi’s call and it was moved by Nehru and seconded by Sardar Patel. She narrated how all Congress Working Committee members and numerous Congress workers were then arrested and released from jail only on end of the World War II. “Jawaharlal Nehru spent his longest incarceration in the jail while some of the Congress workers died in the jails,” she said. -PTI