With his birthday greetings for L K Advani coming under criticism, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said reducing the veteran BJP leader’s long years of service to one episode, however significant, is unfair.
Tharoor also said that when the totality of Jawaharlal Nehru’s career cannot be judged by the China setback and Indira Gandhi’s by the Emergency alone, he believes “we should extend the same courtesy to Advaniji”.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP described Advani as a true statesman whose life of service has been exemplary. “Sorry, Mr Tharoor, unleashing the ‘dragon seeds of hatred’ (to quote Kushwant Singh) in this country is NOT public service,” a lawyer posted on X in response to Tharoor’s post, alluding to Advani’s role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
Replying to the post, Tharoor said, “Agreed, @sanjayuvacha, but reducing his long years of service to one episode, however significant, is also unfair.”
“The totality of Nehruji’s career cannot be judged by the China setback, nor Indira Gandhi’s by the Emergency alone. I believe we should extend the same courtesy to Advaniji,” the Congress leader said.
Advani, who played a key role in transforming the BJP into a major force in national politics, was conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, earlier this year.
He led the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and launched the historic Rath Yatra in 1990, which became a defining moment in the country’s political landscape.
Along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani played a crucial role in founding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. He became the face of the party’s assertive Hindutva ideology and was instrumental, alongside Vajpayee, in transforming the BJP into a major political force.
Under their leadership, the party grew from just two parliamentary seats in 1984 to 121 in 1992 and 161 in 1996, marking a turning point in Indian politics. The 1996 elections saw the Congress lose its long-held dominance, with the BJP emerging as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha for the first time since independence.
During the 1990s, Advani also rose to prominence as the key leader of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. He launched the historic Ram Rath Yatra on September 25, 1990, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s birth anniversary, from Somnath, with plans to conclude it in Ayodhya on 30 October after covering 10,000 km. The yatra aimed to mobilise public support for constructing a Ram temple at Ayodhya.
(With inputs from agencies)
