NEW DELHI: Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi lashed out at attempts to "distort and demean" former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy, calling it a "systematic attempt" to rewrite history and destroy the nation's foundations.

Accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of "vilifying" the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi claimed that their goal is to "destroy the social, political, and economic foundations" of the country.

" Let there be no doubt whatsoever that the project to vilify Jawaharlal Nehru is the main objective of the ruling establishment today. Their goal is not just to erase him, it is to actually destroy the social, political, and economic foundations on which our nation has been founded and built," she said while speaking at the launch of the Nehru Centre India at Jawahar Bhawan in the national capital on Friday.

The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson said, "While we welcome ongoing analysis of his (former PM Jawaharlal Nehru) contributions, what is not acceptable is the systematic attempt being made to denigrate, distort, demean and defame him. The sole objective of this is not only to diminish him as a personality, his universally recognised role in India's independence struggle and his early decades as a leader of an independent nation challenged by unprecedented problems, but it is also to demolish his multifaceted legacy in a self-serving attempt to rewrite history."

She linked these attempts to ideologies that opposed India's freedom movement and Constitution, saying that they were driven by a "bigoted and viciously communal outlook".