New Delhi: Six months after it lost power, Congress is apparently utilising the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru to rally all non-BJP, non-NDA parties together under the plank of secularism.
A two-day international conference is being organised here from tomorrow to highlight the legacy and world view of the country's first Prime Minister and will be attended by a host of international leaders and representatives of various political parties from India and abroad.
A major feature of the meet is that the who's who of anti- BJP politics has been invited and Prime Minister Narendra Modi or any other leader from BJP or from its allies have been left out.
The parties, whose leaders have been invited include all Left parties, JD(U), RJD, JD(S), Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress and other "who believe in the idea of India" as espoused by Nehru, as a Congress leader put it.
BJP has been alleging that the decision not to invite the Prime Minister reflected the narrow-mindedness of Congress and is a disrespect to the nation.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi had last week formally invited NCP chief Sharad Pawar for the event but the party now seems to be in two minds after NCP supported the BJP government in the trust vote in Maharashtra.
On his part, Pawar has already expressed his inability to attend the event owing to NCP's Maharashtra unit's two-day convention at Alibaug which coincides with the Congress event.
Party sources said that the Congress chief had personally written to Mamata and Nitish Kumar also inviting them for the event.
Congress has been launching a sharp attack on Modi for the past few days accusing him of seeking to destroy Nehru's secular vision. The party has earlier also been accusing the Prime Minister of appropriating the legacy of freedom movement leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
