NEW DELHI:A day after the Congress’ protests led to the washout of Mnsoon session of Parliament, the BJP went on the offensive against its rival, especially targeting Sonia Gandhi-Rahul Gandhi duo. And the BJP leaders fanned out across the country to hold news conferences targeting the Congress strategy to disrupt the House.
Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad targeted Congress vice-president Rahul over latter’s sudden appearance at the sit-in by the retired defence personnel. “Hit and run, and spit and run are the two principles of Rahul’s politics... How many times will Sonia try to package and repackage Rahul?. You would have seen that his ‘chatukar’ (lackeys) were demanding him to be made party president but for the first time there was some low voice of protest,” Prasad said taking a swipe.
“He could not be made president. So Sonia Gandhi has been trying to foist him on the country,” the BJP leader said.
The NDA had planned to carry out intense campaign in all the 44 constituencies of Congress and nine of the Left parties who had protested in Parliament. The BJP had deputed a minister and five MPs each to carry out month-long protests in these constituencies.
As the campaign started, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was in Dehradun, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in Chennai, Power Minister Piyush Goyal in Ahmedabad and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in Lucknow where the ministers assured that the GST Bill would indeed be passed.
In Bengaluru, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu appealed to all the parties, particularly Congress and the Left, to help pass the legislation as any delay would hurt the national interests. “There is a need for a wider public debate whether persistent violators of the dignity and decorum of legislatures should be properly punished or not,” he added.
Parrikar alleged in Dehradun, “The real reason behind the Congress disrupting Parliament was that it wanted to block GST Bill and the country’s economic growth. Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore accused the Opposition party of putting the interests of Nehru-Gandhi family before that of the country.
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”.
The Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states also addressed media to attack Congress.