NEW DELHI: Congress has rejected Rajnath Singh’s claim that “Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to build Babri Masjid using public funds, and it was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who opposed it”. The grand old party accused the defence minister of propagating a “lie”, and said they would not let “the legacy of Nehru or Patel to be distorted by Godse’s followers.”“There is zero archival or documentary evidence to support it. Nehruji explicitly opposed using government money for religious places — including the reconstruction of Temple. He insisted it should be funded through public contributions, not the state,” Congress MP Manickam Tagore said.Invoking the first prime minister’s opposition to the use of public funds for rebuilding the Somnath Temple, Tagore said, “If Nehruji refused public funds even for Somnath — a symbol revered by millions — why would he propose spending taxpayer money on Babri? The claim collapses under basic logic and historical record.”“Rajnath ji ‘s statements aren’t about history. They’re about politics — rewriting the past to divide the present. The BJP’s strategy is simple: insult our founders, invent stories, fuel polarisation. We will not allow the legacy of Nehru or Patel to be distorted by Godse’s followers,” he said.

Here’s what Rajnath said

The defence minister on Tuesday charged at the first prime minister saying that he “spoke about spending government funds on the Babri Masjid issue” and that “Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel opposed it.”Addressing the ‘Sardar Sabha’ in Vadodara, he said, “At that time, he did not allow the Babri Masjid to be built with government money. Nehru ji raised the question of reconstruction of the Somnath Temple… Sardar clarified that the Somnath Temple case was different; the public had donated Rs. 30 lakh there, a trust had been formed, and not even a single penny of government money was used.”“The Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has not been funded by government money. The entire cost has been borne by the people of this country,” he added.