Chidambaram responds to Modi, lists out names of Cong. presidents

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Former Union minister P Chidambaram on Saturday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for targeting the Congress, reminding him of the party’s legacy by listing out the names of its presidents from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family.

He asked the prime minister to now speak on the Rafale aircraft deal, unemployment and suicide of farmers during his rule. In an election rally in Chhattisgarh on Friday, Modi had asked 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 listed out the names and said the Congress was proud of the humble origins of its post-Independence leaders like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri, K Kamaraj and Manmohan Singh and many others besides thousands others during pre-Independence days.

“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 (sic),” he said.