New Delhi, Nov. 15: The Congress is trying to court the terror-tainted Jamia Milia Islamia University with a long used card — the legacy of Indira Gandhi.

The latest issue of the party’s in-house magazine, Sandesh, carries an address she had made as Prime Minister at a convocation in the university in November 1975.

“Our Muslim brothers and sisters can take pride in the fact that they have made a significant contribution to the enrichment of Islamic thought and philosophy in the world. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the freedom struggle and they have an equal responsibility for the progress of free India. Therefore, they have an equal right to benefit from the prosperity of India,” she had said.

The throwback to Indira Gandhi is the Congress’s way of reassuring Muslims that it, more than any other party, has historically held their rights and interests close to its heart.

The “historical bond” had come under strain when the university, stigmatised after an encounter between police and alleged terrorists in its vicinity in September, found little support from the Congress.

Fearing a Hindu backlash, the party had shied away from protesting against the BJP-RSS campaign to brand Jamia a terror cradle.

The Congress has now invoked Indira Gandhi to mend the bridges, just like Rahul Gandhi had done during a road show in March 2007.

At Deoband’s Islamic seminary, Dar-ul Uloom, where no Congress leader had set foot after the RSS-BJP tagged it a hotbed of “anti-national” activities, Rahul ended a pithy speech with the line: “I am Indira Gandhi’s grandson.” He didn’t contextualise the statement.

But clerics later explained that after Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad, Indira Gandhi was the only Congress leader to visit the institution.

The Congress is dealing the same card to win back the university founded by Zakir Husain, the grandfather of party leader Salman Khurshid.

The Jamia campus falls in the Okhla Assembly constituency, which the Congress had won in 2003. The Samajwadi Party and the BSP have fielded candidates this time and are reportedly cutting heavily into Muslim votes.