All India Congress Committee president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi mocked the Bharatiya Janata Party for raising issues of corruption at the Centre while the party had “crossed all limits in corrupt practices” in Karnataka.
While Ms. Gandhi’s election rally in the sweltering heat of Gulbarga on Thursday received an overwhelming response, the response was muted in Bangalore, with several chairs remaining vacant on the sprawling Palace Grounds.
Ms. Gandhi accused the BJP, which championed the cause of the Lok Pal in Parliament, of actually opposing the passage of the Lok Pal Bill moved by the UPA government, which was an “irony and a tragedy”.
Turning the BJP’s claims on development on its head, Ms. Gandhi said that one of the major victims of the five-year “misrule” of the BJP was development. Giving her speech a local touch, Ms. Gandhi not only showered praise on personalities such as Sir M. Visvesvaraya and Nobel laureate Sir C.V. Raman, but also greeted people in Kannada with the phrases “ellarigu namaskaragalu” and “badalavane tanni” (bring about change).
