Opposition Leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Jaya Bachchan Skip Historic Maha Kumbh, Attend Muslim League's Iftar Party During Ramazan

On March 20, 2025, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, along with Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, Akhilesh Yadav, and others, attended the Iftar dinner hosted by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in New Delhi.

Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Party MP Jaya Bachchan and others attend an Iftar hosted by Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), in New Delhi on Thursday. | ANI

Iftar gatherings have long served as a platform for politicians to project their ‘secular’ credentials under the guise of promoting religious harmony and unity. However, the same leaders were notably absent from Maha Kumbh, the historic Hindu event that drew millions of devotees to Prayagraj earlier this year.

Moreover, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan had previously spread misinformation about Maha Kumbh and an alleged stampede. Without any credible evidence, she claimed that the event’s water was the most contaminated in the world, citing the supposed dumping of dead bodies of stampede victims.

During a press interaction on February 3rd, Jaya Bachchan stated, “Where is the water most contaminated right now? It’s in Kumbh. Bodies (of those who died in the stampede) have been thrown in the river because of which the water has been contaminated… The real issues are not being addressed. The common people visiting Kumbh are not receiving any special treatment, there is no arrangement for them. They are lying that crores of people have visited the place, how can such a large number of people gather in that place at any given point?”

Likewise, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge raised concerns about the Maha Kumbh 2025 and the government's preparations for the event. He suggested that the expenses for Maha Kumbh are covered at the cost of depriving the country's poor of social welfare benefits.

“Ganga main dubki lene se gareebi dur hogi kya” (will poverty be eliminated by taking the holy dip in the Ganga river), Kharge asked adding that he does not want to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments but when there are poor children lacking food, when the people are struggling to find employment, our government leaders are competing with each other to take the holy dip in the Ganga. They keep on taking dip after dip until they get a good enough photo for the TV cameras. But they do not care about the real issues plaguing the people,” Kharge stated this in January of this year.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had taken a holy dip at the Kumbh Mela in 2001, at a time when questions were being raised about her Indianness. However, despite her long political career, she was absent from the 2007 Kumbh as well as the once-in-a-century Maha Kumbh in 2025. Even if one considers her age, Rahul Gandhi, Congress’s unannounced Prime Ministerial candidate and self-proclaimed youth leader, also chose to skip the Maha Kumbh—though he had no hesitation in politicizing the Hindu festival.

It is ironic that these opposition leaders avoided attending the Maha Kumbh but had no qualms about exploiting the grand Hindu event for political gains and misinformation against the BJP. Meanwhile, they eagerly attended an Iftar party hosted by a party with ideological ties to Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League—the very organization responsible for India's bloody partition. This selective engagement raises serious questions about their true motivations. Are they genuinely committed to inclusivity, or are they merely pandering to the Muslim vote bank by aligning with Islamist political outfits?

There was a time when the Congress-led UPA government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, outright denying the existence of Lord Ram, mocking Hindu beliefs in the most disrespectful manner. However, with the BJP-led NDA rising to power and a Hindu resurgence, Congress had no choice but to adopt a pretentious "Janeu over the coat" stance. Since 2014, Congress leaders, especially the Gandhi family, have been on political temple runs, invoking their alleged Kashmiri Brahmin roots and reinterpreting Hindu beliefs to suit their needs. They’ve audaciously tried to position themselves as the “true Hindus,” claiming to embody the inclusive spirit of Hindu Dharma, while accusing the BJP of politicizing it into a caricature. Yet, when it comes to supporting Hindu causes or being part of significant moments for Hindus, the Gandhi family rarely prioritizes Hindus.

This was evident when the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi turned down an invitation to attend the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya last year, seemingly to avoid displeasing their Muslim votebank. Meanwhile, he was found repeatedly spreading falsehoods about the ceremony's attendees and mocking Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. This year, despite crores of Hindus celebrating the grand Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj, Rahul Gandhi, who claims to be a self-declared Tapasvi and an expert in Hindu traditions, failed to show up. For Congress, Hindu faith seems to be a tool to use against its political rival, the BJP, only brought out when needed and quickly put away afterward.

While attending Iftar parties isn’t inherently an issue, the optics reveal Congress’s true priorities. A Hindu celebration lasting two months came and went, yet no senior Congress leaders attended the Maha Kumbh. Sonia Gandhi served as an MP from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh for years, and her son now holds the same seat in the Lok Sabha, while Priyanka Gandhi has made Uttar Pradesh her political battleground. Yet, when a massive religious gathering was held in Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh, the Gandhi family chose to avoid it.

It appears that Congress feared attending the Maha Kumbh, which was organized by the BJP government, would send the wrong message. However, the party had no qualms about allying with the Islamist outfit IUML and sending its top leaders to attend Iftar dinners.

IUML and Its Controversial Legacy

The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which claims to have been established after Indian Independence in 1948, is actually a splinter group of the All India Muslim League (AIML) led by Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The AIML's legacy continued through the formation of the Muslim League in Pakistan and the Indian Union Muslim League in India. On its website, the IUML asserts its commitment to secularism and communal harmony, but its actions have often contradicted these ideals.

The Muslim League, which strongly advocated for the creation of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, was instrumental in the partition of British India in 1947. The establishment of the IUML in December 1947 was part of an effort to maintain the spirit of the All-India Muslim League.

Muhammad Ismail, the first president of the IUML after its split from Jinnah’s Muslim League, was an active participant in the partition movement and a staunch supporter of Pakistan’s creation. Despite claiming the IUML was a secular organization, Ismail had supported the retention of Sharia law for Indian Muslims during discussions in the Constituent Assembly following India’s independence.

Ismail, the founding president of the IUML, also negotiated with Congress to recognize the League as the sole representative of Muslims in India, mirroring Jinnah's claim that his party was the exclusive voice of Muslims in undivided India.

Jawaharlal Nehru, often regarded as the symbol of India's pluralism, who had once rejected Jinnah's 1937 proposal for a coalition government with the Muslim League, later allied with the IUML in post-independence Kerala. This political collaboration between Congress and the IUML encouraged political Islamists to adopt more communal stances under the guise of defending Muslim interests.

The IUML has a history of inflaming communal tensions in Kerala. It was implicated in planning and executing the 2003 Marad massacre, as outlined in the report by the Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission, which described the event as "a clear communal conspiracy, with Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist organizations involved."

In 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) reopened the case and named IUML leaders P.P. Moideen Koya and Moyeen Haji as suspects for allegedly funding, conspiring, and executing the riots.

Despite Rahul Gandhi calling the IUML a “completely secular” party and Congress leaders attending its religious gatherings during Ramzan, the IUML has consistently pushed an Islamist agenda. In 2022, the IUML, along with other Muslim groups in Kerala, demanded that election dates be changed to avoid coinciding with Jummah prayers, pushing for democratic processes to align with Muslim religious practices.

In 2023, the IUML expressed support for Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic terror group, despite its violent actions against Israeli civilians. That same year, IUML leaders raised anti-Hindu slogans, including threats of hanging and burning Hindus alive, during protests over the Manipur unrest in Kasargod, Kerala.

IUML leaders have also made controversial remarks regarding LGBTQ+ issues, with KM Shaji calling the community a "shame" and labeling them as "the worst humans." The party has also shown a misogynistic side, as evidenced by its 2021 decision to disband the women's wing of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) after its members refused to retract sexual harassment complaints against male MSF leaders.

In 2022, IUML leaders opposed gender neutrality and sex education in Kerala’s school curriculum, dismissing them as an “atheist-leftist conspiracy.”

Conclusion

Although the IUML has adjusted to India’s democratic framework, its history, anti-Hindu stance, and Islamist inclinations indicate that it has not entirely moved away from the divisive ideology that fueled Jinnah’s Muslim League. Nevertheless, Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Kharge, and other opposition figures continue to court the Islamist group, eagerly embracing an alliance with them. For the opposition, aligning with the IUML—a remnant of Jinnah’s divisive and anti-Hindu legacy—is seen as an act of secularism and a step toward peace. However, participating in the Maha Kumbh, the world’s largest religious congregation and a symbol of unity, would supposedly brand them as communal or ‘Hindu hardliners.’ Driven by an unquestioning commitment to appease the Muslim vote bank, the opposition has now reached a point where the so-called ‘secular’ parties of 2025 are increasingly resembling the Muslim League of the 1940s.

(This Article was originally published by OpIndia)