Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Launching a strong attack on the Opposition, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday accused the BJP of targeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G scam, while retaining corruption tainted BS Yeddyurappa as the Chief Minister of Karnataka.
The Congress president said it was shameful that the Opposition was unfairly targeting the Prime Minister on the 2G spectrum issue, when is he well known to be a “man of integrity” and a person who was "100 per cent above board".
Apparently referring to sustained campaign of the BJP against Singh in the run up to the last Lok Sabha elections, Sonia reminded the saffron party that it had to pay a heavy price for trying to "destroy the image" of the PM during the last Lok Sabha elections of 2004 and said that it should learn a "lesson" from that.
Taking the moral high ground, Sonia pointed to the way Congress dealt with corruption. She said the party has the best track record in dealing with tainted people. Bringing out individual incidents of former Union minister Natwar Singh in Bofors case, former MoS, external affairs Shashi Tharoor with regards to IPL, ex-Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan in Adarsh Society scam and former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G controversy, she said they all were asked to go after some allegations surfaced against them.
Terming corruption a bimari (disease) in the system Sonia said, “When we talk of action against corruption there is a chasm between actions taken by the Congress and other political parties on the issue of corruption. The people of the country can judge.”
Taking further pot shots at the Opposition, Sonia said, “The BJP is throwing its weight behind BS Yeddyurappa, an accused in a massive 500 crore land scam.”
Sonia also congratulated Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the success of JD(U)-BJP combine in Bihar Assembly polls.
Referring to the poor show of Congress she said, “Congress did not hope to win in Bihar. Perhaps that was the reason we deliberately kept out of an alliance.”
“The results in Bihar elections indicate that our party has to start from the scratch and that is what we plan to do,” she added.
Sonia Gandhi however failed to fix responsibility or blame anyone for the party’s failure, especially considering that Rahul Gandhi was personally associated with the Congress campaign in the state.
