BJP accuses Nehru of opposing Somnath temple rebuild

A political slugfest erupted on Wednesday on the Somnath temple issue with the BJP and Congress trading charges. While the former claimed that then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not in favour of rebuilding the temple, the latter said the BJP must answer why President Droupadi Murmu was not invited to attend the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The BJP alleged that while the Somnath temple was plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni and Alauddin Khilji in the past in independent India, the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, hated Lord Somnath the most.

In a series of social media posts, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged that Nehru did not want the Somnath temple rebuilt after Independence due to his “blind appeasement politics,” which led him to glorify even Mughal invaders.

Instead of countering Pakistani propaganda or defending India’s “civilisational memory”, Nehru chose to “appease” Pakistan by downplaying historic Hindu symbols and prioritised “external appeasement over internal self-confidence”, the BJP Rajya Sabha MP charged, citing letters of the first prime minister.

Trivedi said the most “striking example” of this is a letter by Nehru to then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, on April 21, 1951.

Nehru addressed Khan as “Dear Nawabzada” and described the story of the Somnath temple gates as “completely false,” the BJP leader alleged.

“Pandit Nehru, in a way, surrendered to Liaquat Ali Khan, writing that nothing like the reconstruction of the Somnath temple was taking place,” he said.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters later, Trivedi clarified that the BJP does not have “anything personal” against India’s first PM.

“The Opposition (to Nehru) is ideological and pragmatic. Like Narendra Modi, who is not an individual but an institution, Nehru is also not a leader but a symbol of an idea,” he said.

But, Trivedi said, the reminder of the Somnath temple issue and Nehru’s approach towards its reconstruction is “significant” today to apprise people of the country with the “terrifying and horrific” ideas of Nehru, which were hidden under several layers of cover. The “same mindset” that existed back then is still visible in Congress today, he alleged.

The BJP leader said there are two ideologies in the country today, one which believed that “Bharat was never a country” and that it cannot survive as a country, while the other is the idea of “one Bharat and great Bharat, with all diversities, which is shining and progressing” under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership.

The Congress slammed the BJP for accusing the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, of indulging in appeasement politics over the Somnath temple issue, saying the ruling party was resorting to “lies and half-truths” by selectively quoting from Nehru’s letters.

Congress leader Piyush Babele said that when the BJP is raising the issue of then-President Rajendra Prasad’s participation in the rebuilt Somnath temple inauguration, it must answer why President Droupadi Murmu was not invited to attend the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

“They (BJP) are serving lies and presenting it as truth, they are serving half-truths. They selectively pull out Nehru’s letters with the context taken away, as the letters written before and after are not talked about,” Babele said in a video that was reposted by Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh on social media.

In a social media post along with his video, Babele said, “The Bharatiya Janata Party keeps raising the same question repeatedly: that then-Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had stopped then-President Dr Rajendra Prasad from attending the inauguration of the Somnath Temple. Before we expose this lie, will the BJP answer this: During the Modi government, who stopped then-President Shri Ram Nath Kovind, who comes from the Dalit community, from attending the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya?”

During the Modi government, who stopped the current President, Droupadi Murmu, who comes from the Adivasi community, from attending the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, he asked.

Countering the BJP, Babele said that on November 28, 1947, in his prayer meeting in Delhi, Mahatma Gandhi had clearly stated that the Junagadh government could not use public funds from the State treasury to build the Somnath temple.

When the time came for the inauguration of the Somnath temple in 1951, it came to light that the then-government of Saurashtra had given Rs 500,000 for the temple’s construction, he said.

“Building the temple with government funds was against the wishes of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, Iron Man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and the provisions of the Indian Constitution. Pandit Nehru, adhering to this very policy, was opposing the use of government funds in the temple’s construction,” he said.