Tharoor reiterated his stand on accepting ‘Swachh Bharat’ call
Shashi Tharoor. (Photo: DC/File)
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mr Shashi Tharoor MP has reiterated his stand on accepting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to support the ‘Swachh Bharat’ saying that it was Mahatma Gandhi’s idea who once said ‘sanitation is more important than independence.’Mr Tharoor, who returned to New Delhi on Monday evening, posted his comments on his Facebook site under three heads.
This is Mahatma Gandhi’s idea.
“The Congress party reacted maturely to the announcement, with former minister Rajiv Shukla rightly decrying the silly speculation about “Tharoor inching towards the BJP.” “Why should we be surprised about it?” he asked. “ There are a lot many things which every government has to do and the Opposition has to cooperate.” Shuklaji is right: indeed, as he said, the Congress would have welcomed it if the Prime Minister had invited many other Congressmen and women to join his effort. After all, it had been launched on the birthday of the greatest Congressman of us all, Mahatma Gandhi, who once said, “Sanitation is more important than Independence.”
This was not pitched as a BJP initiative.
“The PM’s invitation to nine people who are not part of his government helped portray it as a people’s movement rather than a government drive. Who would be churlish enough to refuse an offer to participate in a people’s movement, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, that would improve the lives of all Indians?”
Programme first initiated by Congress.
“Congress gave the nation a rural sanitation programme, which in 1999 was changed by the first NDA government to a total sanitation campaign, with equally modest results. The UPA government in 2012 subsumed that into a Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, with the objective of making the nation open defecation-free by 2022.”
( Source : dc correspondent )
Next Story
