Priyanka Gandhi Vadra delivered her maiden speech in Parliament on Friday, using a discussion on 75 years of the Constitution to counter the BJP’s constant sniping at the Nehru-Gandhi family and ask, “Is it all the responsibility of Nehruji?”

Her speech, which included point-by-point rebuttals of previous speaker Rajnath Singh’s attacks on her family and party, drew a pat from brother and leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who said her maiden speech had outdone his.

“The ruling party talks about the past… (about) what (Jawaharlal) Nehru did. Talk about the present. What are you doing? What is your responsibility? Is it all the responsibility of Nehruji?” Priyanka said, drawing cheers from Congress members.

The newly elected Wayanad MP, always an articulate and combative speaker, spoke immediately after defence minister Rajnath had initiated the discussion on “the glorious journey of 75 years of the Constitution of India” in the Lok Sabha.

The BJP member dwelt extensively on the past and accused the Congress of undermining the Constitution to further its political interests. He cited several instances, including the first amendment to the Constitution under the first Prime Minister, Nehru.

“Whenever there was a choice between samvidhan (Constitution) and satta (power), the Congress chose power,” Rajnath said.

Priyanka took Rajnath head-on, using his reference to the dark days of the Emergency to urge the ruling benches to learn from the past.

“The defence minister recalled political developments that took place in the past. He spoke about 1975 (the Emergency),” she said. “Toh seekh lijiye na aap bhi (So learn yourself too)…. You too apologise for your mistakes.”

She said that if the government conducted polls through ballot papers, everything would become clear. The Congress has been alleging the manipulation of electronic voting machines to favour the BJP in elections.

With her mother Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and husband Robert Vadra watching from the visitors’ gallery,Priyanka defended andhailed her great-grandfather Nehru without mentioning him by name.

“The one whose name you sometimes hesitate to speak, while freely using it at other times to save yourself, he set up HAL, Bhel, Sail, Gail, ONGC, NTPC, railways, IIT, IIM, oil refineries and several PSUs,” she said.

“His name can be erased from speeches, but his role in the freedom of this nation, in building this nation, can never be erased.”

Priyanka also praised her grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, for nationalising banks.

Earlier, Rajnath indirectly accused the Congress of trying to “hijack” the Constitution and lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being “committed to upholding the dharma as enshrined in the Constitution”.

“One party tried to hijack and appropriate the Constitution…. Our Constitution is not the gift of a party but belongs to the people of India,” he said, striving to link the framing of the Constitution to his party’s ideological forebears.

“Dr Syama Prasad Mookerji believed that the Constitution should be a result of collective ethos and consensus,” he added. He alleged the Congress had neglected Mookerji’s contribution.

In her 32-minute speech, Priyanka took Modi on, saying the Prime Minister repeatedly bowed before the Constitution but had shown deep disdain for the cries of justice from violence-torn Sambhal and Manipur.

“Maybe he hasn’t understood that India’s Constitution is not the Sangh’s legislation,” she said.

Priyanka narrated a story about a king dressing as a commoner and going out to listen to the people’s views about his rule. She then trained her guns at Modi again.

“Lekin aaj ke raja vesh toh badalte hain… lekin na janta ke beech mein jaane ki himmat hai, na alochana sunne ki (Today’s ruler likes to change his clothes… but lacks the courage to go to the public or listen to criticism),” she said as Opposition members thumped their desks.

She also responded to Rajnath’s indirect attack on Rahul for constantly waving a pocket edition of the Constitution.

“I see some Opposition leaders moving around with a copy of the Constitution in their pocket. They have learnt this since their childhood,” Rajnath said.

“They have seen for generations in their family that the Constitution was kept in the pocket. But the BJP places the Constitution on its forehead,” he added, drawing loud cheers from BJP members.

Rajnath repeatedly underscored Modi’s commitment to the “core values” of the Constitution, stressing that the BJP would never allow anyone to alter the document’s basic structure.

Priyanka retorted that had the Lok Sabha results not restricted the BJP, it would have embarked on the project of changing the Constitution.

“The truth is that they are repeatedly talking about the Constitution because, following the Lok Sabha elections, they have realised that discussions about changing the Constitution won’t work,” she said.

Priyanka accused the government of undermining reservations for the weaker sections by encouraging lateral entries and privatisation.

The defence minister had also underlined how Congress governments at the Centre had dismissed elected state governments.

Priyanka responded: “Who tried to break governments in Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh through (the use of) money?”

She went on to refer to the “washing machine”, wondering how politicians facing corruption charges received a clean chit after they defected to the BJP.

Priyanka accused the government of creating an atmosphere of fear, claiming the people and institutions of the country had never before encountered this kind of fear. She asserted that fear cannot prevail for too long.

“Wonderful speech,” Rahul later told reporters. “Better than my maiden speech, let’s put it like that.”