Congress leader Jitin Prasada today termed as "political chicanery" the comments of BJP's Narendra Modi and patriarch LK Advani speaking about the "differences" between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.
"Both Nehru and Patel had fought together in the freedom struggle and after Independence worked in close coordination to build a modern country.
Any attempt to praise either of them to belittle the other or to create an impression that they were not on good terms is political chicanery", Prasada told reporters here.
The Union minister, who had visited Nehru-Gandhi family's ancestral house to pay tributes to the first Prime Minister on his 124th birth anniversary, responded to journalists' query without naming BJP, Modi or Advani.
Flanked by party leaders like former Uttar Pradesh Congress president and MLA Rita Bahuguna Joshi and local legislator Anugrah Narain Singh, Prasada paid floral tributes to statues of Nehru and placed garlands over his life-size portraits.
Later, Prasada addressed a meeting of Congress workers after which he told reporters, "We are bewildered as to why the poor people of Uttar Pradesh are deprived of Food Security despite the fact that the ruling Samajwadi Party in the state had voted in its favour when the Bill to the effect was introduced in the Parliament".
To another query, he said, "Upon my return to Delhi, I will personally look into complaints of vacant posts in the Allahabad University and make it sure that proper action is taken".
