Sonia, PM target Advani: don’t need his certificate on terror, remember Kandahar

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NEW DELHI, March 9: The occasion was Dhanyavad Rally, organised by the Congress to pat its own back for the Rs 60,000-crore largesse announced for farmers in the recent Budget. Addressing the huge crowd of farmers gathered here from various states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh virtually launched the party’s campaign for the general election, blasting BJP leader L K Advani over his party’s “failures” in controlling terrorism and helping farmers.

The attack on the opposition party came less than a week after Singh reached out to its senior leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, over the BJP’s head, on the nuclear deal issue. Incidentally, today the PM and Sonia made no mention of the deal or the Left’s criticism of it, focusing all their attention on the BJP.

“A senior BJP leader levelled accusations against the Prime Minister on the terrorism issue in Parliament. I want to say that we don’t need their certificates,” Sonia said, in an apparent reference to Advani.

Without naming him, she went on to point out that under the same leader’s tenure as the Home Minister of the country, “the Kandahar hijacking, and attacks on the Red Fort, Parliament and Raghunath temple took place”.

Admitting that terrorism continues to pose a challenge to the development process, the Congress president added: “We are dealing with it with strong hands.”

Cashing in on the Budget’s loan waivers, both Sonia and Singh also attacked the BJP for “ignoring” farmers’ plight during the NDA rule. “The BJP’s criticism is like ulta chor kotwal ko daante (pot calling the kettle black),” said Sonia. “Since the Congress-led government came to power, it has worked for farmers’ interests, be it loan waiver or remunerative prices to farmers, which the NDA government failed to provide. Still they continue to criticise us.”

The Congress president added: “I want to ask them what they did for farmers when they were in power. There is no point shedding crocodile tears now.”

Earlier, Singh, who had accused the BJP in Parliament last week of ignoring farmers, again attacked it for the same. “I would like to remind that farmers’ interests were ignored during the tenure of the BJP-led government, which ruled the country for six years before we came to power in 2004,” he said.

“You should judge our commitment to farmers after comparing it with the BJP government’s, which never worked for farmers’ interests, instead working for suppressing their income.”

Singh also promised that the UPA government would implement the entire farmers’ loan waiver package by June this year. “I don’t consider it (the waiver) a burden on the government but a duty towards farmers. In bad times, we even waive off debts of big industrialists,” the Prime Minister said.

However, given the election year, Sonia expressed some concerns over price rise, saying the government was trying to tackle it effectively. However, she attributed inflation to the rise of petroleum and food prices across international markets.

She reminded that the government has still kept kerosene prices at the same level and not increased food prices at fair price shops.