Congress shares pics of Nehru, Indira with doyens of India’s space programme to highlight continuity

PTI, Aug 24, 2023, 8:43 PM IST

The Congress on Thursday shared several photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi with doyens of India’s space programme such as Vikram Sarabhai to highlight the continuity in the country’s progress in the sector.

After Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon, the Congress said it is a collective success of every Indian and ISRO’s achievement reflects a saga of continuity and is truly fantastic.

In multiple posts on Thursday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh shared several such photographs, including one in which Sarabhai is seen explaining to Nehru and another wherein space scientist E V Chitnis is doing the same.

The two photos were taken on February 10, 1962, at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Campus in Ahmedabad just a fortnight before the formal announcement of INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research) under Sarabhai’s chairmanship, Ramesh said.

He also reposted a photograph from 1980 in which then prime minister Indira Gandhi is seen with scientist A P J Abdul Kalam and Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chairman Satish Dhawan.

The BJP, however, slammed the Congress, alleging that it is creating a ”myth around Nehru’s non-existent scientific temper”.

The Congress, on its official handle on X, shared a post asking people if they knew that it was Nehru who founded INCOSPAR which is enhancing India’s pride in the form of ISRO.

”INCOSPAR was the first brick laid for India’s space programme by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962,” the party said in another post.

Earlier in the day, Ramesh, who is also the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, pointed out that the parliamentary panel visited the PRL on December 30, 2019.

”PRL founded by Vikram Sarabhai in November 1947, has made invaluable contributions to our space programme,” he said in his post on X.

”The Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment, Forests & Climate Change was at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on December 27, 2019. Recalling that memorable visit and the photograph with the bust of the co-architect and true systems builder of our space programme,” Ramesh said.

In a post, BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya said after 2014, Prime Minister Modi’s government put moon missions on the fast track, funded Chandrayaan-2 and placed Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar South Pole.

”All Moon missions India has launched were conceived under BJP Prime Ministers. All that Congress has done, all these years, is run around the Gandhi family…and promote mediocrity of the worst kind, which includes creating myth around Nehru’s non-existent scientific temper,” he said.

After the Chandrayaan-3 landing, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on Wednesday that an elated nation with 140 crore aspirations witnessed yet another achievement in its six-decade-long space programme and the entire world is looking up to the ISRO which is a matter of special pride for all Indians.

Ramesh also said ISRO’s achievement reflects a saga of continuity and is truly fantastic.