BJP's shortchanging Indira not good for country's image: Harish Rawat

Dehradun, Oct 31 (PTI) Congress leader Harish Rawat on Friday accused the BJP of trying to downplay the sacrifice of former prime minister Indira Gandhi for political gain.

In an interview with PTI Videos here, Rawat said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi, all three, have their own contributions to Indian history and are great men.

"When you try to pit historical figures against each other, the country's respect diminishes," the former Uttarakhand chief minister said.

Rawat said Sardar Patel played a key role in the unification of states, while, along with Nehru, he played a major role in laying the foundation of India's Constitution.

On Indira Gandhi's contributions, he said, "Under Indira Gandhi's leadership, the country experienced the Green Revolution, the White Revolution, and the Blue Revolution. She led the country on the path of self-reliance." He cited the example of the 1971 Indo-Pak war and said that when India Gandhi refused to answer US President Richard Nixon's call and the Seventh Fleet had to return from the Bay of Bengal, it gave new wings to India's national pride.

"If you try to downplay Indira Gandhi's sacrifice by highlighting Sardar Patel's personality, it diminishes Patel's greatness. Sardar Patel was as respectable to Indira Gandhi as Indira Gandhi is to us," Rawat said.

Earlier, Rawat paid tribute to the country's first woman prime minister on her death anniversary.

"She, who has been acknowledged as the most popular Prime Minister of all time in many high-profile surveys around the world, whom even today every exploited, oppressed, and poor person considers their protector, who through her personality and actions earned the image of an Iron Lady, a woman whose heart was always filled with affection, whom no one had the power to bend, whom even US President Nixon failed to bend, that mother-like Mrs. Indira Gandhi was martyred today," he wrote on social media.

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own gunmen on October 31, 1984, outside her house in the national capital.

The death sent the city into a communal turmoil, resulting in the anti-Sikh riots across the north. PTI DPT VN VN