Mehbooba Mufti praises Sonia Gandhi's memoir, takes aim at BJP over Nehru's legacy

Srinagar, Nov 10 (PTI) PDP president Mehbooba Mufti praised Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday for coming up with a book filled with happy memories despite having endured so much pain in her life.

Gandhi's memoir, "Belonging: A Journey of Love", was released on Tuesday.

"Sonia Gandhi evolving into a leader, then into a stateswoman, she has gone through a lot. I think no other woman politician would have endured as much she did," Mehbooba told reporters here.

The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said the way Gandhi carried herself when her children faced the trauma, when their grandmother and later their father were killed, "that must have been very emotionally taxing".

"But still to come up with such a beautiful book with so many happy memories, of course, there are sad occasions as well, it's something I admire in her, she has the capacity and strength to bear it all," Mehbooba said.

On the book, she said that it "tells the truth that the ideology of BJP, RSS, Jansangh is the ideology of Godse... Sonia associates herself with the ideology of (Mahatma) Gandhi and secularism".

"So, it must be an interesting book," she said.

The PDP chief also criticised the BJP over allegedly attacking the legacy of country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

"The way BJP people are talking about Nehru, how they will understand Nehru. There is a legacy of him, he handled India when Hindus and Muslims were out for each other's blood... The BJP cannot understand Nehru, their mindset is divisive," she said.

Mehbooba said Nehru gave the country institutions like ISRO, and basic infrastructure "which now they (BJP) are handing over to Adani".

"Their thinking is limited to Hindu-Muslim, rather than science. They talk about cow dung, that's what their thought process is," she alleged. PTI