New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) has criticised the Congress after Sonia Gandhi awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Improvement to former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, invoking her previous criticisms of the Citizenship Modification Act (CAA) and the Jammu and Kashmir problem.

In 2019, commenting on the restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir within the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370, Bachelet, then serving as the pinnacle of the UN Human Rights Council, had expressed deep concern in regards to the “influence of current actions by the Authorities of India on the human rights of Kashmiris”.

BJP chief Amit Malviya posted on ‘X’ Thursday that “Congress’s resolution to award the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize to Michelle Bachelet is as revealing as it’s predictable”, alleging that she constructed her tenure on a “distinctly anti-India, pro-Islamist narrative that aligned completely with the worldwide Left-Liberal ecosystem. Naturally, Congress rushed to have fun her.”

The award, instituted in 1986, is run by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Belief, chaired by Sonia Gandhi. Different members of the Gandhi household together with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are additionally members of the belief.

Right now, I really feel privileged to have the ability to say a couple of phrases on the lifetime of one other extraordinary, inspiring chief whom we’re honouring. Former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, has seen, at first hand, loss, oppression, torture, and exile in her early years. It’s a exceptional… pic.twitter.com/ZI8iRaR8kW

— Congress (@INCIndia) November 19, 2025

Bachelet is the thirty seventh recipient of the award. The quotation of the award to Bachelet, a member of the Socialist Get together of Chile, lauded her for steadfastly striving for peace, gender equality, human rights, democracy and growth in troublesome circumstances and her contributions to India’s relations with Chile.

The primary recipient of the award, in 1986, was Parliamentarians for World Motion, a world collective of legislators from varied international locations, in recognition of its “tenacious espousal of nuclear disarmament”. In 1986, it went to Mikhail Gorbachev, the then normal secretary of the Communist Get together of Soviet Union, for his “imaginative and prescient of a non-violent world freed from nuclear weapons”.

Through the years, many recipients have been leaders who could be positioned within the Centre-Left class, however not all. As an example, in 1997, it went to former US President Jimmy Carter for his work within the space of disarmament and peace, whereas in 2013, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel obtained it for her “exemplary management in Europe and the world throughout the monetary crises, her stewardship of German financial progress and the promotion of world financial stability”.

In 2007, the Invoice and Melinda Gates Basis was awarded for its “pioneering and exemplary philanthropic work around the globe and in India”.

In a twist of irony, each Muhammad Yunus, the present chief advisor of Bangladesh, and Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as prime minister final yr which led to Yunus’s rise, are additionally among the many previous recipients of the award. Yunus obtained it in 1998 for his contribution because the chairman of the Grameen Financial institution within the struggle towards poverty.

Eleven years later, in 2009, Hasina was the awardee for her contributions to the “promotion of democracy and pluralism and her decided drive to alleviate poverty”.

Centre-left leaders to have obtained it embody Gro Harlem Brundtland, a member of Norway’s Labour Get together who served three phrases because the nation’s prime minister, former President of Namibia and anti-apartheid activist Sam Nujoma, and President of Brazil Lula da Silva in 2010.

Alternatively, former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel, who performed a key position in toppling the Communist system in erstwhile Czechoslovakia, was awarded the prize in 1993.

Former Director Common of the Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA) Mohamed El Baradei, a Nobel Peace laureate, was the recipient of the prize in 2008.

Aside from people, establishments that obtained the award embody Medical doctors With out Borders in 1996, ISRO in 2014, the Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees, the Centre for Science and Atmosphere, and Pratham.

Former Nationwide Safety Adviser Shivshankar Menon, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, former Planning Fee member Syeda Hameed, former Chief Info Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, former journalist Suman Dubey, social activist Aruna Roy and former Chief Financial Advisor Kaushik Basu are the jury members of the award.

The code of process that guides the jury states that the award, which carries a money purse of Rs 10 million together with a trophy product of Haematite Jasper, the identical stone utilized in developing the memorial of Indira Gandhi, is given for promotion of world peace, disarmament, racial equality and financial cooperation amongst others.

(Edited by Tony Rai)

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