Shashi Tharoor and Arun Jaitley engage in a war of words over Jawaharlal Nehru-Indira Gandhi 'dynasty'. Read here

In a scathing attack at the Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi family, Union Minister Arun Jaitley, in his blog on November 27, gave a befitting reply to the obnoxious remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s father by a Congress party leader.

In the blog titled: "What was the name of Sardar Patel's father?", Jaitley stated that during decades of its rule, Congress party intended to declare the ‘Gandhis’ as India’s royalty.

“They were ‘officially glamorised’ as the blue-blooded family of India. The others did not matter,” reads the blog.

Jaitley took to Twitter to post quotes from the blog. In one of the quotes, he stated that Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his daughter Indira Gandhi as his successor, laying the foundation of a ‘dynastic democracy’.  

Retaliating to the minister’s statement, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor replied to the tweet stating that there was no shred of evidence that may prove that Jawaharlal Nehru was promoting his daughter Indira Gandhi. Later, he asserted that Lal Bahadur Shastri took the Prime Minister’s office after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, while there no discussion over Indira Gandhi’ candidature. He went onto say that political history is not a ‘strong suit’ of the BJP.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had served as a personal assistant during her father and first PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure between 1947 and 1964. During the same period of time, she was elected as the president of the Congress party in 1959.

However, after Pt. Nehru’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri was appointed as the Prime Minister and Indira Gandhi took the office of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting under Shastri’s cabinet. Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away in 1966, after which elections took place. Indira Gandhi went onto defeat Janata Dal leader Morarji Desai and became the Prime Minister in 1966.

Meanwhile, in his blog, the Finance Minister also threw an indirect challenge at the Congress party for the upcoming 2019 election stating that "If the Congress Party wants the 2019 elections to be between Prime Minister Modi, who is the son of lesser-known parents and someone (Rahul Gandhi) who is known only for his parentage rather than capacity, merit and competence, the BJP would gladly accept the challenge."