New Delhi: The Congress's two day Nehru International Conference as part of the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru continues on Tuesday. It is being attended by many eminent leaders.
The event, which Congress used to reach out to non-NDA parties, saw Mamata Banerjee from Trinamool Congress and Left leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury of CPI-M and D Raja from CPI coming together.
Sonia Gandhi had extolled Jawaharlal Nehru's championship of secular values.
Holding that secularism, a state neutral in matters of religion, respecting all faiths equally was an article of faith for Nehru, Sonia Gandhi said "There could be no Indianness, no India, without secularism. Secularism was and remains more than an ideal, It is a compelling necessity for a country as diverse as India."
At the conference, Sonia said that Nehru's belief that only parliamentary democracy and a secular state could hold the country together in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic and multi-regional society, has been proved right.
Holding that Nehru's achievements were not only for the past and continue to bear fruit, the Congress President said the conference is "not only a commemoration of his 125th birth anniversary, it is an opportunity to reassert the relevance, durability and indispensability of his legacy."
"I hope that this conference will contribute significantly to that objective," she said.
The New Delhi conference has two subject sessions -- Inclusive Democracy and People's Empowerment and Nehru's Worldview and a Democratic Global Order for the 21st century.
The two-day conference will conclude with a commemorative declaration on Tuesday, which will will capture the essence of the deliberations and convey a message of global import.
(With PTI inputs)
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