Sharmistha Mukherjee, the daughter of former president Pranab Mukherjee, on Tuesday questioned the current ideology of the Congress, a day after she said the party should look outside the Nehru-Gandhi family for its leadership.

Responding to a comment on her social media handle X, Sharmistha Mukherjee, a former Congress leader, said the Congress or the Gandhi-Nehru family didn’t give Pranab Mukherjee any position “out of charity”.

“Congress or Gandhi-Nehru family didn’t give any position to my ‘papa’ out of charity. He earned it & deserved it. Are the Gandhis like feudal lords expected 2 b paid homage 4 generations?” Sharmistha Mukherjee wrote.

“What is d current Congress party’s ideology btw? Becoming Shiv-bhakts just before elections?” Sharmistha Mukherjee questioned while taking a dig at Congress leaders.

Earlier on Monday, on the sidelines of the 17th Jaipur Literature Festival, she said there was a need to involve grassroots workers at every level in the process of restoration of democracy in the Congress, membership campaign, organisational elections within the party and policy decisions, as former President Pranab Mukherjee has also written in his diary.

“There is no magic wand… It is not my job to define Rahul Gandhi. It is not possible to define any individual. If someone asks me to define my father, I cannot even explain my father,” Sharmistha Mukherjee told news agency PTI.

On the issue of leadership, the former Congress leader said party leaders have to answer this.

“But as a Congress supporter and a responsible citizen, I am worried about the party. And certainly, the time has come to look outside the Nehru-Gandhi family for leadership,” Sharmistha Mukherjee, who claimed to be a “die-hard Congressperson”, said.

She also said the Congress should introspect whether it is truly upholding its ideology forward today. “Are pluralism, secularism, tolerance, inclusivity, and freedom of expression, which have been at the core of Congress, being followed in practice?”

Speaking on the Opposition INDIA bloc, Sharmistha Mukherjeesaid she prefers to call it “INDI Alliance”.

“When it was formed, I had posted on X that if it fails, what will be the headlines? ‘INDIA Breaks’. No political party should be synonymous with the country. This thought came to my mind,” she explained.

Sharmistha Mukherjee had joined the Congress in 2014. She unsuccessfully contested the Delhi assembly election from the Greater Kailash seat in 2015. In a post on X, Sharmistha Mukherjee had said in September 2021 that she has “quit politics”.