Indira, Rajv Gandhi bled for India: Kapil Sibal on PM’s ‘shahi parivar’ remark

Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's allegation that the Congress party is trying to separate Karnataka from India, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said that the grand old party had bled for India and questioned whether the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) would remove facts about Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi from textbooks.

Sibal tweeted, "PM said : Congress Shahi Parivar wants Karnataka to “secede” from India. But Modiji : The nation saw them "bleed" for India. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi. Is the NCERT going to efface those facts from textbooks ?"

The Prime Minister made the accusation on Sunday expressing his pain at the Congress party's "shahi parivar" coming to Karnataka and claiming that they wanted to protect the state's sovereignty.

Addressing a public rally in Mysuru on Sunday, the prime minister had said, “Not only Karnataka, I want to tell this to the entire country with a lot of pain that in this election Congress’s ‘shahi parivar’ yesterday came to Karnataka and said that they want to protect the ‘sovereignty’ of Karnataka".

“Do you know what is the meaning of it... When a country becomes independent, that country is called a sovereign country. The meaning of what Congress is saying is that the Congress believes that Karnataka is separate from India,” he added.

The accusations followed a rally by former Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Hubbali, where she promised to protect Karnataka's reputation, sovereignty, and integrity. The party's official Twitter handle posted,"CPP Chairperson Smt. Sonia Gandhi ji sends a strong message to 6.5 crore Kannadigas: “The Congress will not allow anyone to pose a threat to Karnataka's reputation, sovereignty or integrity.”

The NCERT has recently been at the center of controversy for dropping certain chapters on Mughal history in textbooks.