Kangana Ranaut appears to have obliquely questioned Mahatma Gandhi’s appellation as “Father of the Nation”, her latest impetus to political controversy coming on the leader’s birth anniversary and attracting criticism from the Congress.

“Desh ke pita nahi, desh ke toh lal hote hai (A country does not have fathers; it has sons),” the actor and BJP Lok Sabha member posted on her Instagram page on Wednesday while paying homage to former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

“Blessed are these sons of Mother of India,” she added, with a picture of Shastri.

Gandhi and Shastri share the same birthday, October 2, which sections of the Right wing use to pit the Father of the Nation against the former Prime Minister who died of a sudden heart attack in Tashkent during a peace summit with Pakistan dictator Gen. Ayub Khan. Kangana paid no direct tribute to the Mahatma but, in a follow-up post to that on Shastri’s, mentioned him in the context of praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She lauded Modi for carrying forward Gandhi’s legacy of cleanliness across the country.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate slammed Kangana for her “lewd jibe” at the Mahatma and asked whether Modi would forgive his party’s “new Godse devotee”.

“BJP MP Kangana made this lewd jibe on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary. Godse worshippers draw distinctions between Bapu and Shastri ji,” Shrinate said on X. “Will Narendra Modi wholeheartedly forgive his party’s new Godse devotee?”

The context to the “new Godse devotee” jibe appeared to be a comment by former BJP Lok Sabha member from Bhopal and terror accused Pragya Singh, who had in 2019 described the Mahatma’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, as a patriot. Modi had at the time said he would never forgive her for insulting Bapu.

Officially, the BJP did not respond to Kangana’s post but a senior leader of the party from Punjab, Manoranjan Kalia, castigated the MP from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, for the damage she was causing the party with her comments.

“Politics is not her field. Politics is a serious affair. One must think before speaking… Her controversial remarks cause trouble for the party,” Kalia said in a video post.

Kangana had last month advocated a return to the three farm laws that were revoked following a yearlong farmers’ agitation in 2020-21, putting the BJP in a spot ahead of Assembly polls in the heavily agrarian state of Haryana. She later clarified that this was her personal opinion, apparently under pressure from her party.

In August, the BJP leadership had been compelled to reprimand her after she alleged that “rapes and murders” were committed during the farmers’ agitation.

Kangana’s latest film, Emergency, in which she plays Indira Gandhi, has found itself struggling to receive the certification board’s clearance.