Congress on Tuesday accused BJP leaders of falsifying and distorting history. Referring to Union minister of State Kiren Rijiju’s assertion at a meeting on Monday that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was the first national leader to acknowledge the Naga struggle, All India Congress Committee (AICC) observer Capt Praveen Davar said Rijiju had conveniently forgotten the contributions of Congress Prime Ministers beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr Manmohan Singh in addressing the Naga issue since Independence.
In a release, the AICC observer pointed out that it was Nehru who had granted statehood to Nagaland way back in 1960 when it became the first State in Northeast to be carved out from Assam. Subsequent Congress Prime Ministers, especially Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Singh, had been generously helping Nagaland with massive economic packages during their tenures, he claimed.
Davar alleged that in the last 15 years of non-Congress governments no development had taken place in Nagaland and that the State’s financial health had been completely destroyed by massive corruption and mismanagement of resources.
Commenting on Rijiju’s statement that religion was very sacred and above politics, the Congress leader reminded the Union Minister that it was his party BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which were mixing up religion with politics ever since RSS was founded in 1925. He said Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, Rath Yatra of LK Advani in 1990, demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, Gujarat genocide of 2002 and the innumerable communal riots since the country’s Independence were all instances of mixing up religion with politics by the saffron family.
Davar said the people of Nagaland have not forgotten the brutal murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two adolescent sons during Vajpayee’s tenure, lynching of minorities for alleged beef eating or cattle trading, rape of nuns and burning and desecration of churches in BJP-ruled States. He alleged that the moral police of Hindutva forces were forcing young men and women to give up their customs and attires and adopt Hindutva way of life.
He also accused BJP ministers of having gone to the extent of demanding that the word “Secular” be dropped from the Constitution of India and insisting on making reading of Hindu scriptures compulsory in schools.
Reacting to Union Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s recent statement that quoted Vajpayee as having said that he was born when church bells were ringing and her assertion how a party guided by Vajpayee could be termed as anti-Christian, the Congress leader wished if only had BJP listened to then Prime Minister, who could not succeed in removing Narendra Modi then as Gujarat chief minister after the latter’s failure to stop the unprecedented communal violence in the State in 2002.
Finally, dismissing Rijiju’s assertion that Christian community had to be protected at all cost, the AICC observer wondered how could a party that ill-treated Christians in coastal Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, UP and Delhi be trusted to be fair to Christians in Nagaland where it was trying to establish a foothold riding on the back of a regional outfit. He predicted that the alliance partner would be punished by the people for its tie-up with BJP.
“You cannot be saffron in northern India and secular in Northeast. People of Nagaland can see through this gross opportunism and will not let you win a single seat. You will not be allowed to disturb peace and harmony,” Davar cautioned BJP.
Sunday, May 3, 2026