Firing a fresh salvo, veteran leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Tuesday said if the Congress cannot stand a dissident then it is the party's 'doom', and if it does not have the courage to respond to the person in a 'polite but firm language', then it doesn't deserve to rule.
Aiyar also recalled that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's words in Parliament in 1989 that 'only a secular Bharat can survive' and dared the Congress high command to get his son, Rahul Gandhi, to repeat those words. "The Congress lives because of dissidence, the Congress grows because there are many opinions and it is all connected with the Vedic injunction that God is one, the Congress is one.
"But there are many paths that lead to God, and in a similar way, there are many paths that lead to the Congress. Unfortunately, this lesson seems to have been forgotten by the current establishment," Aiyar said in a video released as part of his series, 'Mani Talk', on YouTube. He has been uploading videos on his YouTube channel for the past few months.
"We have always lived on the strength of dissidence and dissidence is the basis of democracy. If we do not have the courage to answer the dissident in polite but firm language, then we don't deserve to rule," Aiyar said in his over 23-minute video titled 'No Space for Dissent in Today’s Congress?'. He recalled that speaking in Parliament on May 5, 1989, Rajiv Gandhi had stated that only a secular Bharat can survive. Rajiv Gandhi had followed that with "...and if India is not secular then perhaps it does not deserve to survive".
"I say to the Congress high command, who have kept me out of the working committee, which now has 60 members: do you have the courage to repeat the words in the mouth of the son of Rajiv Gandhi....words that are on record in Parliament which were pronounced by Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi 'amar rahe'," Aiyar said. In the video, Aiyar cited several instances of dissidents raising their voices in the Congress during the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
On Monday, Aiyar went on a verbal rampage against his party colleagues, a day after remarking that the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) would retain power in Kerala. In a series of scathing remarks, Aiyar branded Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor an 'unprincipled careerist', labelled AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal 'rowdy', and took a swipe at party veteran Ramesh Chennithala. Aiyar also took aim at Pawan Khera, referring to Congress national spokesperson as a 'tattu' (pony). Aiyar was reacting when asked about a social media post by Khera distancing the party from his remarks.
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