Dismayed over Congress MPs not attending a programme to pay floral tributes to Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee in Parliament, BJP leader L K Advani on Saturday said politicians should not discriminate on party lines between great men of the nation.

Congress MPs, Speaker Meira Kumar and Vice President Hamid Ansari were conspicuous by their absence from a programme organised in Central Hall of the Parliament to pay floral tributes to Mr Mukherjee on his birth anniversary today.

Noting this, Mr Advani said at the BJP headquarters later, “The great men of the nation should not be discriminated on party lines.... In the Central Hall, when we gathered to pay floral tributes to Mukherjee, I did not see anybody from the Congress. I noticed that they had not come.”

Mr Advani, along with Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, paid tributes to Mr Mukherjee in Parliament.

Deputy Speaker Karia Munda, Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy, BJP leaders S S Ahluwalia and Rajendra Agarwal were among those present.

“I did not know that this could be the attitude of the Congress. If this was by mistake then Congress should make amends. But if this was by design then it is sad,” Mr Advani said.

He recalled that when the portrait of freedom fighter Veer Savarkar was put in Parliament, the Congress leaders had openly announced their opposition to it and boycotted the programme even though the President of India attended.