New Delhi, Aug. 14: Sonia Gandhi today called on people to remember the "immeasurable sacrifices" that went into making what India is today, the long Independence Day-eve statement betraying the Congress's unease over the government's countrywide "Tiranga yatra" to celebrate 69 years of freedom.

The exceptionally long statement marked a departure from past greetings that were ritualistic one-liners.

The Congress chief did not refer to the Narendra Modi government or the BJP. But the statement revealed her party's concerns over what it sees as an obvious attempt to alter the traditional freedom struggle narrative, where the Sangh parivar barely had any space, and hijack the Congress's legacy.

Sonia, who was discharged from hospital today nearly a fortnight after she took ill during a roadshow in Varanasi, asked the country's youths "to not simply commemorate the 70th Independence Day but recall the ideals behind it". She said there was a "need for a national movement to reinvigorate the principles of compassion, coexistence and inclusive development as the indelible features of our polity, society and economy".

The emphasis on "compassion, coexistence and inclusive development" came amid a backlash on cow vigilantism by so-called bovine protectors.

In her statement, Sonia said "the weapons of truth and non-violence adopted during the freedom movement shook the foundation of the British Empire and inspired many self rule movements across the world".

"Independence was a result of immeasurable sacrifices of those who made India what it is today," she added. "I call upon every citizen to follow the solemn duty of protecting and preserving the values of freedom and equality."

She took care to pay tribute to farmers, labourers, tradesmen, scientists, teachers and thinkers "in the great task of nation-building" and also underlined the selfless service of the armed forces. "Each Indian citizen, as indeed the Congress worker, was a freedom fighter and as inheritors of this great legacy today, we must rise to fulfil the responsibility of preserving and fighting for the values that this rich legacy bequeathed us with," she said.

The official Congress website uploaded Jawaharlal Nehru's famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech, while the party's Twitter handle remembered stalwarts of the freedom movement, posting photographs and quotes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Although Sonia made a subtle reference to the Congress as the "inheritors of this great legacy", she left it to leaders like Digvijaya Singh to point out that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP's ideological mentor, had no role in the freedom movement.

In a tweet, Digvijaya said he was happy the Modi government was organising the "Tiranga yatra", although the RSS had always opposed the Tricolour and preferred the saffron flag instead.

The party's communications chief, Randeep Surjewala, said the Modi government was destroying democracy and appealed to the people to fight the "escalating threat".

Digvijaya also wondered how BJP chief Amit Shah could question Nehru's role in nation-building.

Yesterday, many senior party leaders had told The Telegraph in informal conversations that the government was ruthlessly enforcing its agenda to erase Nehru's legacy.

"It was interesting to hear Amit Shah's speech at Kakori in Uttar Pradesh where he launched the 'Yaad Karo Qurbani' campaign (to recall the sacrifices of freedom fighters)," one leader said. "He started with Subhas Chandra Bose and went on to name Tatya Tope, Nana Saheb Peshwa, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Rani Laxmibai, Ram Prasad Bismil, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Chandrashekhar Azad, Veer Kunwar Singh and Mangal Pandey before coming to (Bal Gangadhar) Tilak, (Gopal Krishna) Gokhale and finally Gandhi. There was no mention of the Congress or Nehru."

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government did not get into a legacy-war when it was in power from 1998 to 2004 but that was a rag-tag coalition in which the BJP avoided making aggressive ideological assertions.

But Modi had set the tone for a different kind of politics from the very outset, declaring that little had been achieved in the first 60 years of independence as he openly called for a Congress-free India.