New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday unleashed a country-wide onslaught against the Congress as it held over 28 press conferences, including many by Union ministers and chief ministers, to "expose" the opposition party for stalling Parliament "without a cause".
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the tone for the NDA's belligerence against Congress, especially the Gandhi family, Union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Manohar Parrikar, JP Nadda, Prakash Javadekar, Ananth Kumar and Nirmala Sitharaman, among others, hit out at the top Congress brass.
The real reason behind Congress disrupting Parliament was that it wanted to block GST Bill and the country's economic growth, Parrikar charged in Dehradun while Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore accused the opposition party of putting the interest of Nehru-Gandhi family before that of the country.
At a press conference in Lucknow, Javadekar likened the Congress's rule to the British regime, alleging the party had a "notion" that it will "never" get out of power but, with time, the party lost power and became "irrelevant".
Party spokesperson Nalin Kohli said in Pune that by stalling Parliament over a non-issue like the Lalit Modi row, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had made himself, and not the GST Bill and other important issues, central to the interests of India.
Taking a dig at Rahul, he said it was a sad state of affairs that senior leaders with greater intelligence than him like Ghulam Nabi Azad and P Chidambaram were forced to defend him.
The Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana chief ministers also addressed media to attack Congress, saying it was trying hurt economic growth by disrupting Parliament.
More press conferences will be held by NDA leaders, including ministers, in the coming days as the ruling alliance seeks to capitalise on the virtual wash-out of Parliament's Monsoon Session because it believes that there is a "popular anger" against it.
NDA has also planned to carry out intense campaign in all 44 constituencies of Congress and nine of the Left parties which, it said, were the "principal actors" in the disruption.
At a meeting of NDA MPs, Modi had yesterday asked them to fan out across the country to expose the Congress, equating the disruption with the Emergency, when Congress wanted power to be concentrated in one family.
"We accept this undemocratic challenge by Congress and will take it to the people. Our people will go to every nook and corner to expose the Congress, which is trying to stop the growth of the country," he had said.
