Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Responding in equal measure to the scathing attack by the Opposition over the WikiLeaks exposé on the 2008 trust vote, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Wednesday, took potshots at the BJP by saying that LK Advani has never forgiven him for not being able to occupy the PM’s chair.
The PM rued that he had been facing the Opposition onslaught ever since his government came to power in 2004.
“Advaniji believed that being PM was his birth right and therefore he has never forgiven me,” adding, “People of India have voted us to power, please wait for another three and a half years.”
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who had earlier in the day quoted an Urdu couplet to corner the PM, also received it back in equal measure.
Manmohan Singh, known for command over the language, said, “I am no match no to Sushmaji when it comes oratorical skills, but I will also recite an Urdu couplet.”
“Mana ki tere deed ke kaabil nahin hoon main. Tu mera shauk dekh, mera intezar dekh.”
On the WikiLeaks issue, the Prime Minister once again dismissed it as being “non-verifiable” and warned against “going by hearsay”.
"We should not go by what some embassy official writes about us," he said.
Pointing out that the KC Deo Committee, which had probed the cash-for-vote scam, had also not concluded that any bribe was paid, he said, “I leave it to the good sense of the House to decide for itself if the report of Parliament`s inquiry committee substantiates wild allegations.”
“We were not involved in any illegal act, nor had we authorised anybody to indulge in any bribe giving during 2008 confidence vote,” he said.
Following his statement, NDA staged a walk out.
