Congress suffering from "siege mentality," says Gadkari

Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari. Photo: C. V. Subrahmanyam

The Congress suffered from a “siege mentality” and was using ‘abusive' language against the Opposition to deflect the nation's attention from its “failures,” the Bharatiya Janata Party said on Sunday while refuting the charges levelled by Congress president Sonia Gandhi against it.

“The Congress is suffering from a mentality of a party under siege. Ms. Gandhi's speech sounds like the reaction of a party under siege. Instead of answering calls from the people on core issues, we see her replicating the Congress conduct when they were under attack right from the Bofors scandal and till date,” BJP president Nitin Gadkari said in a statement.

Mr. Gadkari alleged that the Congress indulged in “pretended aggression” to deflect the country's attention from its “failures” in checking corruption, non-performance of the UPA-II government, its “alienation” from the people and mistrust among its allies. “The Congress should introspect during their scheduled brainstorming sessions on how it has missed out yet another opportunity to answer people on the core issues that are posing a challenge today,” he said.

At a press conference here, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said that by using abusive language, Ms. Gandhi had attempted to deflect the nation's attention from the failures of UPA-II. “We shall definitely raise these questions on the public fora and make sure the Congress will answer.”

Defending the stalling of Parliament over the 2G spectrum scam, she rebutted Ms. Gandhi's charge that the BJP resorted to political blackmail. “Pranab Mukherjee has also chosen to say in a resolution that the principal Opposition party has led Parliament towards almost a subversion of the Constitution. These are not the ways in which the ruling party is expected to come with its answers to people,” she said.

Attacks Digvijay

The BJP also targeted Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh for his comments on Hindu terror. “Today we see that Mr. Singh was speaking about things, which till yesterday the Congress wanted to distance itself from. Today, the Congress has given an official forum for such talks,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

Mr. Singh should not be taken seriously as, despite his tall claims, he had till date failed to prove his contentions about his talks with slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare.

The BJP alleged that the Congress' allegations of a conspiracy against secularism were not substantiated. “I wonder where the conspiracy is happening. They are still not sure on what their position is on secularism. What is their stand on secularism? Ms. Gandhi has spoken about minority and majority fundamentalism. I have a feeling that the Congress is having a churning on what constitutes terror in their definition,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

Asked about charges of corruption against the BJP government in Karnataka, she said the party was waiting for the report of its in-house inquiry. “The Congress will never have a moral high ground on corruption. The party had allowed Ottavio Quattrochchi [accused in the Bofors kickbacks case] and William Anderson [the former chief of the Union Carbide] to get away,” she said.