On Rajiv's birth anniversary, West Bengal Congress kicks up 1984 storm
Rajiv Gandhi's infamous 1984 quote after the assassination of his mother was posted by Congress' West Bengal unit.
It's been a bad week for Congress in the social media sphere. The grand old party has never really been as comfortable with the medium as the BJP, but with time one expected them to adapt. But no, the grand old party hasn't learned enough despite its many gaffes.
Only last week, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh referred to Kashmir as India-Occupied Kashmir.
Today, their West Bengal unit went one better (worse for them): in the memory of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who would be 72 today, they dropped one his "famous" quotes.
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| Rajiv Gandhi's infamous 1984 quote after the assassination of his mother was posted by Congress' West Bengal unit. |
This was Rajiv's infamous comment made just days after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.
"When a big tree falls, the earth shakes," Rajiv had said, before anti-Sikh riots erupted in various parts of the country.
What had immediately followed Indira's death was the pogrom that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Sikhs.
Rajiv's quote had not gone down well with the Congress' top brass at that time, let alone now. The party's West Bengal unit deleted the tweet, but screenshot Armageddon is a real phenomenon and the damage was done, for posterity.
The insensitivity of the quote has never been understated, but with many Congress members still under judicial scrutiny for the 1984 pogrom, digging up the party's murky past on the former PM's birth anniversary has thrown down the gauntlet.
Some serious social media struggle, this time.