Why do you hate Nehru so much? Raut asks Centre

Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday said the exclusion of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's picture from a poster released by a body of the Union Education Ministry to mark the 75th year of India's independence shows the Centre's "narrow mindset", and asked the Union government why it "hates" Nehru so much.

Raut, in his weekly column 'Rokhthok' in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana, said the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education, has excluded the pictures of Nehru and MaulanaAbulKalam Azad from its poster, and alleged that it was an act of "political vindictiveness".

"Those who had no participation in the freedom struggle and creating history are keeping out one of the heroes of the independence struggle. This act, done out of political vindictiveness, is not good and shows their narrow mindset. It is an insult of each and every freedom fighter," Raut claimed. One can have differences over Nehru's policies after independence, but no one can deny his contribution to the freedom struggle, said the Rajya Sabha member, who is the executive editor of Saamana.

"What has Nehru done to hate him so much? In fact, the institutions he built are now being sold to keep the Indian economy moving," Raut said, while referring to the National Monetization Pipeline (announced recently by the Centre), and claimed it was due to Nehru's "long-term vision" that the country was saved from economic devastation.

Raut, whose party shares power with the NCP and Congress in Maharashtra, said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin recently took a decision not to remove pictures of former state CMs Jayalalitha

and E K Palaniswami from school bags which were being distributed free to children in the southern state.