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National

SMS campaign on Gujarat “pride”

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: It could not have come at a more opportune time for the BJP in Gujarat. With just a day to go for the Lok Sabha elections in the State, a massive anonymous SMS campaign has been launched appealing to the voters on the “pride” of Gujarat.

Apparently linking the Supreme Court order to probe Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 communal riots with the CBI’s decision to remove from the wanted list the suspect in the Bofors scandal, Ottavio Quattrocchi, the short messages sent on the mobile phones read: Gujarat ki bete ke liye jail aur Italy ki bete ke liye bail (Jail for the son of Gujarat and bail for the son of Italy). The target is Congress president Sonia Gandhi, whose origin is in Italy.

The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani, when asked about the court order asking the Special Investigation Team to probe the role of Mr. Modi and 63 others, said: “It is only a legal process and everyone will fully cooperate with it.”

Mr. Modi linked the court order with Union Minister Kapil Sibal’s alleged threats held out recently that he would “end up in jail” if he did not stop campaigning against the Congress. Thus, Mr. Modi said, it was a “Congress conspiracy.”

On the Quattrocchi issue, Mr. Advani said he condemned the decision of the UPA government “in the strongest possible terms” and held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Gandhi directly responsible for “colluding in this conspiracy to bury the truth about Bofors.” He said the Quattrocchi incident had also raised doubts in the minds of the people about the Congress’ sincerity in bringing back black money stashed away in foreign banks.

Asked about Mr. Modi as Prime Minister, Mr. Advani said that in the BJP which did not support “family heir,” such matters were decided by the party and not an individual.

Mr. Advani claimed that besides Mr. Modi there were many “Prime Minister materials” in the BJP. He named Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan as one of them.

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