'Advani praised Jinnah': Congress reminds PM Modi of 'history', says Jana Sangh founder made deal with Muslim League

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh launched a scathing attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who claimed on Saturday that the Congress' manifesto "completely bears the imprint of the Muslim League".

Reacting to PM Modi's comments, Ramesh posted a video on X, "reminding" the Prime Minister of the history. He claimed that Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Jana Sangh and president of Hindu Mahasabha, "was running a coalition government with Muslim League in Bengal, Sindh and North West Frontier Province".

"The Prime Minister said the Congress adopted the policy of the Muslim League. Let me remind the Prime Minister that in 1940, 1941 and 1942, which person, which Muslim party, was in the coalition government with the Muslim League, in Bengal," Ramesh asked in a video message.

"Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who was the founder of the Jana Sangh and president of the Hindu Mahasabha, had formed a coalition government with the Muslim League. There was an alliance between the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League In Bengal, in Sindh and in the Northwest Frontier Province," Congress MP Jairam Ramesh claimed.

Speaking with news agency ANI, he said, "Syama Prasad Mukherjee made an agreement with Jinnah's Muslim League. Congress had never made an agreement..."

The Muslim League and Mohammed Ali Jinnah had made the demand for the partition of British India into separate Hindu and Muslim states. After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, the League became Pakistan's dominant political party.

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'Lal Krishna Advani praised Jinnah'

Ramesh further claimed that BJP stalwarts Lal Krishna Advani and Jaswant Singh had gone "to Pakistan and praised Jinnah".

A Hindustan Times report published in 2013 claimed that in 2005, Advani, one of the co-founders of the BJP, earned the wrath of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) when he went to Pakistan and praised its founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a "secular" personality.

Advani's comment, recorded in the mausoleum of Jinnah in Karachi, had reportedly undermined the Sangh's doctrine that he was responsible the painful Partition".

According to another Hindustan Times report, Jaswant Singh was expelled from the BJP for his controversial book "Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence" in which supposedly praised Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.