New Delhi: A day after Congress leader Sonia Gandhi declined an invite to the Ram temple ‘pran pratishtha’, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece Organiser has posted on social media a letter she wrote to Pope Francis in 2016, explaining her inability to attend the canonisation of Mother Teresa.
In the letter, the former Congress president said she was unwell and had also nominated two senior party leaders to attend the Vatican ceremony on her behalf.
The Organiser, a weekly magazine affiliated to the RSS, posted the letter through its official account on X Thursday.
Amid Congress' decision to not attend #RamMandirPranPratishtha, Sonia Gandhi's letter to Pope Francis on Canonization Ceremony of Mother Teresa surfaces @INCIndia pic.twitter.com/gwYmgBIirK
— Organiser Weekly (@eOrganiser) January 11, 2024
Just a day ago, Sonia, along with party colleagues Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — the only three invited from the Congress high command to Ayodhya on 22 January — had said they would not attend the RSS and BJP’s “political project”, maintaining that “religion is a personal matter”.
In her 2016 letter to Pope Francis, Sonia had written that two of her party colleagues, Margaret Alva and Luizinho Faleiro, would represent the Congress at the canonisation ceremony.
“If I had not been unwell, I too would have been there to witness this sacred ceremony, and to pay my humble homage to the woman who was the very embodiment of boundless compassion, mercy and grace,” she wrote.
Hailing Mother Teressa, Sonia said that every citizen of India, “including our nearly 20 million Catholics takes immense pride and joy on the recognition by Your Holiness and the Catholic Church of Mother Teresa’s profound nobility of soul, purity of purpose, and service to God through service to humanity”.
X user Vinod Sharma, who is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many other BJP leaders, shared the Congress’s old post with Sonia’s letter to the Pope, saying, “No such letter of joy and devotion, to any Hindu dharmguru about pran pratistha of Ram Temple. Religion becomes a personal matter for Sonia and Rahul, the moment they have to make a ‘Hindu’ choice that runs afoul of their personal Christian religion and Muslim vote bank.”
The Congress has been under attack from the BJP over its decision to stay away from the consecration ceremony. In a press conference, BJP MP Sudhansu Trivedi said, “This is Nehru’s Congress, this is not Gandhi’s Congress.”
He said that Sonia Gandhi’s decision showed that Congress was against Indian culture, Hindu religion and Hindutva. “The public is also boycotting them from power.”
“Under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Congress, INDI Alliance has insulted Sanatan Dharma again and again. Now, the declining of the invitation to the ‘pran pratishtha’ by leaders of the INDI Alliance reflects their anti-Sanatan mindset,” said Union minister Smriti Irani, calling the Congress “anti-Lord Ram”.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav demanded an apology from the Congress, saying, “This is very unfortunate. Now, they are insulting the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony. In a way it has hurt the sentiments of the majority of the population of the country.”
Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said the Congress would see the impact of its decision in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as it had insulted “the public sentiments of the country”.
Union Minister Prahlad Joshi said the Congress had “reached the heights of appeasement” by declining the invitation.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: ‘Suicidal move, disappointing’: Ripples in Congress over leadership declining Ram temple invite
It is pathetic to equate canonosation with P P @ temple. We cannot exercise our bankrupt knowledge as we have.
And Congress mouthpiece ThePrint carries this as news…wow