The BJP has launched a social media campaign -- 'Desh ki Badli Soch'. (Representational)
The BJP has launched a social media campaign -- 'Desh ki Badli Soch' (country's mindset has changed) -- to project Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a favourable light by comparing his Independence Day speeches with those of his Congress predecessors.
On Tuesday night, the party shared on its Twitter handle many graphics quoting parts of speeches made by PM Modi and his predecessors Manmohan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
One such tweet alleged that Jawaharlal Nehru did not pay tribute to fallen soldiers in his 1963 speech, which came after the 1962 war with China. It noted that PM Modi in his 2020 address remembered those who made the supreme sacrifice in the conflict with Chinese forces in Ladakh.
Sharing a clip from Manmohan Singh's addresses in 2008 and 2009 lauding prime ministers from the Nehru-Gandhi family, the BJP accused him of "remembering selective idols and appeasing a family". The party contrasted it with PM Modi's 2014 speech in which he said the country has reached where it is due to the contributions of all its government heads.
In 1975, after imposing the Emergency, Indira Gandhi justified it as "bitter pills" to "cleanse" different aspects of national life. On the other hand, PM Modi in his 2017 speech, cited democracy as India's "biggest strength", the ruling party claimed.
Citing China's attack on India in 1962 despite the 'Panchsheel' agreement with the country, the BJP accused the Congress leadership of having a soft policy on Kashmir and Ladakh and claimed that PM Modi has maintained a tough stand.
The BJP has been targeting the leading figures of the Congress in its social media campaigns.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday alleged a "self-obsessed" government is hell-bent on "trivialising" the sacrifices of freedom fighters and asserted that her party will strongly oppose such attempts made for political gains.
Mrs Gandhi's attack came a day after the BJP released a video narrating its version of events that led to India's partition in 1947 and for which it tangentially blamed the top Congress leadership at the time. The video showed pictures of Nehru and Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)