Bangalore, April 15 (Inditop) Congress president Sonia Gandhi Wednesday stepped up her attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and L.K. Advani for calling Manmohan Singh a weak prime minister, saying every one knows who are “slaves” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh (RSS).
“People know who functions as slaves of the RSS,” Gandhi said at an election rally in Bidar, around 670 km from Bangalore.
“I ask: Advaniji is making ‘ulta-seeda’ (all sorts of) statements against Manmohan Singh. Does he take any decision independently without (an) RSS nod,” she said speaking from a prepared text in Hindi.
Gandhi referred to Advani, who described founder of Pakistan M.A. Jinnah as a secular person and virtually retracted the statement under pressure from the Sangh Parivar. “What did the strong leader do? He retracted,” she said.
The Congress chief and chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was all praise for Manmohan Singh.
The BJP talks of tackling terrorism but people know during whose rule the parliament attack took place and who escorted terrorists as guests to Kandahar, Gandhi said.
“We do not scream or shout. We act, work.”
“Because of the determined action our government took, Pakistan had to admit its role in the Mumbai terror attack,” Gandhi asserted.
She defended the civilian nuclear deal with the US, saying it would help provide electricity to every village in the country.
Gandhi said the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Rs. 81,000 crore farm loan waiver, mid-day meal scheme for school children and scholarship for poorer sections of the society were some of the achievements of the UPA government.
“These are some of the historic measures taken by the UPA government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh,” she said.
Gandhi dismissed claims of the ruling BJP in Karnataka that the central government was discriminating against the state.
“We have given thousands of crores of rupees to Karnataka. There is no account of how the state had utilised the money. Looting is going on in the state. There is corruption, and law and order situation is worsening,” she said.
Former Congress chief minister N. Dharam Singh is contesting from Bidar, which is among the 17 of the 28 constituencies going to polls April 23 – the second of the five-phase Lok Sabha elections. Voting in the 11 other constituencies will take place in the third round April 30.
Gandhi addressed another rally at Chikkodi, also in north Karnatka. This is her second visit to the state for election campaign.
Her son and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi will tour the state April 17 to address four rallies including one in Bangalore South where state youth Congress president Krishna Byregowda is pitted against four-time winner of the seat H.N. Ananth Kumar, a BJP general secretary.
