INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the Congress and its Nehru-Gandhi legacy today over the party's comment that a "tea seller" could have the country's top job was owing to
the foundation laid by Jawaharlal Nehru.Speaking at the battleground state of Chhattisgarh - where opinion polls have predicted a wafer-thin
majority for the Congress -- PM Modi said it was just a ruse to take credit
The Congress has given shabby treatment to any leader who did not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family, he said.As an example, he cited Sitaram
Kesri, the Congress stalwart who took charge of the party from 1996 to 1998
Sitaram Kesri, a Dalit leader, was "thrown out of office and into the footpath" to make way for Sonia Gandhi to take over the reins of the
party, he said.They say it was by the largesse of Nehru ji that a tea seller could become the prime minister of India
They make such claims to get credit, he said."Make a person outside the Nehru-Gandhi the Congress President for five years and I will agree
that Pandit Nehru made a 'Chaiwallah' the OM
India has not forgotten how a stalwart like Sitaram Kesri Ji was treated by one family," he tweeted later to underscore the point.The Prime
Minister was speaking at Mahasamund, a Congress bastion that was won by an Independent, Vimal Chopra, in 2013
In recent years, the BJP won it only once - in 2003.The fight for Chhattisgarh, where the BJP is seeking a fourth term in power, is being
fought tooth and nail between the two parties
After three terms of BJP, the Congress is hoping that anti-incumbency will deliver the state to them
A poll of opinion polls predicted that the Congress will win 47 of the state's 90 seats - just one above the majority mark of 46
The BJP will get 39 seats, down from last time's score of 49 seats.On Saturday, the Congress slammed PM Modi for his nana-nani, dada-dadi
Chhattisgarh progress by laying out water pipelines.Today, Congress leader Kapil Sibal hit out, apparently at the BJP's ideological mentor,
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, saying the ancestors of the BJP had sided with the British when Jawaharlal Nehru was laying the foundation
of a modern India."When you were young, Nehruji laid the foundation of a modern industrial India
But your party's nana nanis dada dadis collaborated with the British," he tweeted.
