NEW DELHI: Congress today likened BJP to a "supermarket of corruption, pornography and misgovernance", a remark which drew a strong reaction from the opposition party, which suggested that those living in glass houses should not throw stones on others.
"The entire spectrum of immorality and corruption can be found under one roof of BJP's Super Market...If you want to go shopping for corruption, pornography, spectacle of loss of lives and properties and misgovernance, BJP is the single window supermarket of corrupion," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters here.
Reacting sharply to Singhvi's remarks BJP spokesperson Nirmala Seetharaman said,"The Congress Party need not hurry to jump at the opposition party when their house is in such a mess. I think Congress party has a lot to answer much before they even have a quick fire round of the country," she added.
At the AICC briefing, Singhvi referred to alleged "litany of corruption charges" in BJP-ruled states like the land allotment scam in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttarakhand as well as the recent porn gate controversy surrounding the three BJP ministers in Karnataka and its inducting the tainted former BSP minister Babulal Kushwaha.
Attacking Singhvi, Seetharaman said "A very senior member of the Congress, eminent lawyer, jurist does not have to spend an entire Press Conference speaking the language he spoke."
Seetharaman raised issues like the 2G Spectrum, land allotment controversy in Congress ruled Maharashtra and indictment of a Delhi governement minister by Lokayukta to turn the table on Congress on the issue of corruption. "If they indeed had any respect for getting the truth out on any of these things, they would have subjected the Union Home Minister to some kind of a questioning rather than stonewalling it there,"she said.
Referring to the allotment of land by Vilasrao Deshmukh during his tenure as Maharashtra CM, Seetharaman said, "Even as we speak, a matter related to allotment of land to a film training institute by a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra is going on in a court."
She also said a Delhi cabinet minister indicted by the Lokayukta against whom no action had been taken and also attacked the Congress for appointing P J Thomas as CVC before being "rapped around the knuckles by the Supreme Court." Sitharaman also dismissed Congress attack that BJP had always been "belittling" the institutions "If Congress party had respect for institutions they would have attended every meeting of the Gujarat Lok Ayukta panel which was in desperate need of Lokaykta," Seetharaman said and added that the leader of opposition in Gujarat did not attend any of the meetings.
Earlier Singhvi alleged "BJP always belittled institutions". He also alleged that BJP in Madhya Pradesh incited members from their "Parivar" (Sangh family) to assault a professor. "In Uttar Pradesh they (BJP) goes on Yatra and then induct tainted Babulal Kushwaha," Singhvi said.