Chidambaram takes up PM Modi’s dare, lists 15 Congress presidents from outside Nehru-Gandhi clan

Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Saturday listed out 15 names of Congress presidents from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family including Acharya Kripalani, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Purushottamdas Tandon, U N Dhebar, Sanjiva Reddy, Sanjivaiah, Kamaraj, Nijalingappa, C Subramanian and Jagjivan Ram. This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi challenged the Congress to make a Congressman from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family president of the party for five years. In a series of tweets, Chidambaram hit back at Modi adding that he was grateful that the prime minister was “concerned” about who is elected as Congress president and devoted a lot of time talking about it. Chidambaram asked PM Modi if he would spend half that time to talk about demonetisation, GST, Rafale, CBI and the RBI. “To jog PM Modi’s memory: among the Congress Presidents since 1947 were Acharya Kripalani,Pattabhi Sitaramayya,Purushottamdas Tandon,U N Dhebar,Sanjiva Reddy,Sanjivaiah,Kamaraj,Nijalingappa,C Subramanian,Jagjivan Ram,Shankar Dayal Sharma,D K Barooah,Brahmananda Reddy,P V Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri,” Chidambaram said. “Grateful that PM Modi is concerned about who is elected as Congress President and he devotes a lot of time talking about it. Will he spend half the time and speak about demonetisation, GST, Rafale, CBI and the RBI?” he added, “Will PM Modi speak about farmers’ suicides, massive unemployment, lynchings, rape crimes against women and children, anti-Romeo squads, gau rakshak vigilantism and increasing terror attacks?” In an election rally in Chhattisgarh on Friday, Modi targeted the Gandhis saying that the family whose “four generations ruled the country” cannot fathom how can the son of a poor mother could sit on the “rajgaddi” (throne). Addressing a rally at Ambikapur in north Chhattisgarh, PM Modi had also attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi. He asked the Congress to give an account of what the four generations of the (Gandhi) family did for the nation before asking for an account of his government’s four-and-half years’ rule. Source: The Indian Express