Mani Shankar Aiyar

Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday wondered whether the Pahalgam tragedy was a result of unresolved questions of the Partition. Addressing a book release function here, the former Union minister said the question that was posed to the country then and faced it today was whether Muslims in India felt accepted, cherished and celebrated. "Many people almost prevented Partition, but it happened because there were differences in value systems and assessments of the nature of India's nationhood and its civilisational inheritance between people like Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Jinnah and many other Muslims who did not agree with Mr Jinnah. "But the fact is that the Partition happened and till today we are living with the consequences of that Partition. Is this how we should be living? Is that the unresolved questions of the Partition reflected in the terrible tragedy... in Pahalgam on April 22," he said. Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were gunned down by terrorists at .

It is not the first time when Congress had to face embarrassment because of Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks

'By doing this, the Congress would have still lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but not sunk to 44 seats, and could have won 140 seats'

During an election rally in Jharkhand, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that every inch of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) belonged to India and no force could snatch it away from India

In an old and now-viral video, Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar warned that if not respected, Pakistan may consider using its atomic bomb against India

'The Pakistanis, from my experience, have been the people who perhaps overreact to the other side. If we are friendly, they are over-friendly, and if we are hostile, they get overly hostile' Aiyar s

Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has said the party and not former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for unlocking of Babri Masjid gates and asserted that the "BJP-planted" Arun Nehru was behind it. Aiyar also said his guess is that had Gandhi been alive and been the prime minister instead of P V Narasimha Rao, Babri Masjid would still be standing, the BJP would have been given an appropriate riposte and he would have found a solution similar to the one that the Supreme Court arrived at years later. He hailed the Congress top brass' decision to decline the invitation for the January 22 Ram temple consecration ceremony. Aiyar was speaking on Friday at the launch of his book "The Rajiv I Knew And Why He Was India's Most Misunderstood Prime Minister", published by Juggernaut. "He (Gandhi) was saying keep the masjid and build the temple. The Supreme Court said make the temple and make the masjid somewhere else. In a sense, the judgement is the same as the conclusion

Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Sunday alleged that the summoning of TMC MP Mahua Moitra by the Ethics Committee of Parliament over the cash-for-query row and no strict action against BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri for objectionable remark in Lok Sabha show double standards' on part of the Centre. He also claimed that the country has been passing through a very "critical stage" and that democracy is in "danger". Aiyar was speaking here at the launch of former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi's book, 'India's Experiment with Democracy-The Life of Nation Through Its Elections'. "The spirit of the Indian Constitution must be protected. Each of our three pillars of democracy--the legislative, executive and judiciary--needs to remain strong. They constitute not only the form of parliamentary democracy but also its spirit. But it's not happening. The current dispensation at the Centre is adopting a different approach or has double standards in dealing with TMC's Mahua Moitra a

Deepak put a lot of premium on evidence, hard evidence, and was a pioneer in thinking about poverty and inequality

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar was back in the news on Tuesday with an article justifying his "neech" jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi two years ago, prompting the BJP to call him "abuser-in-chief" and his party arrogant. In an article, written for Rising Kashmir, Aiyar also slammed Modi on a series of issues and asked, "Remember how I described him on 7 December 2017? Was I not prophetic?" In 2017, the former Union minister called Modi "neech aadmi" following which he was suspended from the Congress party. BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao put out a tweet saying "Abuser-in-chief' Aiyar" had returned to justify his 2017 'Neech' jibe. "... Aiyar then apologized & hid behind poor Hindi excuse. Now he says he was prophetic. Congr revoked his suspension last year for filthy outburst.Double speak & arrogance of @INCIndia on display again!" he said. Reacting to the article, which triggered a fresh political row, BJP's IT Cell head Amit Malviya referred to Congress .

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Thursday triggered a major political storm by calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a 'neech aadmi'

Aiyar had called PM Modia Neech insaan

He said he never meant low-born

Modi, who was in Surat, latched on to Aiyar's comments, saying it was an insult to Gujarat

Mani Shankar Aiyar says he is ready for any punishment if the Congress suffers damage in the Gujarat elections for his 'neech aadmi' jibe at Modi

Aiyar was suspended from the party in December 2017 after he referred Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a 'neech aadmi' (low-minded)

Aiyar's comments came days after Pakistan-based terrorists on February 10 killed six persons in an attack at Sunjawan army base camp in Jammu region

The Congress had also issued him a show cause notice over the remarks

Over lamb, prawns and noodles, Anjali Puri finds the veteran Congressman uncharacteristically rattled but far from abject

The petitioner seeks to book Aiyar and others present under conspiracy and sedition charges