NEW DELHI: After Sonia Gandhi shared dais with Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar at a rally in Patna, BJP today hit back saying the "promoters of politics of family rule, opportunism and corruption" have come together to target it and accused the Congress chief of telling "lies" to attack the Centre.
As Gandhi attacked the Modi government over "diluting" MNREGA and its Pakistan policy, BJP said the whole world had acknowledged India's tough stand on terrorism but she spoke "lies" while her son and deputy Rahul Gandhi went to border to question the Centre instead of Pakistan.
"The promoters of family rule, opportunism and corruption were today at one platform... Sonia Gandhi, you should have shown some shame. You told lies on Pakistan," Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference.
Under the BJP government, allocation to MNREGA had been increased by Rs 5000 crore and it was not diluted as alleged by Gandhi, he said.
Seeking to corner the Congress over her sharing dais with the RJD chief, a convict in a fodder scam case, Prasad said it was a "cruel joke" that she praised his rule in Bihar, saying it was an "insult" of Bihar, which is likely to see assembly polls in October-November.
BJP dubbed the grand alliance's 'Swabhiman' rally as "apman rally".
"There was no issue of development in today’s rally. There were no women, dalit and poor," he said, mocking Gandhi for her "supporting role" with Kumar and Prasad being the "mascot" and "director" of the Jungle Raaj-II.
Slamming Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi for questioning government about its stand on Pakistan, Prasad said that the government has taken a tough stand on the matter. "We have made it clear that we will not tolerate terrorism," he said.
Drawing a comparison with the rallies held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prasad said that today's rally was a failure as the crowd was not even half of Modi's four combined rallies.
He also attacked Nitish Kumar for drawing a comparison between him and Chandragupta Maurya and Samrat Ashok and Jayaprakash Narayan saying he thinks that 'he is Bihar' and 'Bihar is him'.
In an apparent reference to speakers in the rally reaching out to different various castes, he said rank casteism is being promoted by the leaders of the grand alliance while BJP-led NDA believes in taking everybody along. Prasad said that even though Chief Minister Nitish Kumar praised Lalu Prasad's contribution in the development of the state, the former did not praise the leader of "Mangal-Raj Part-2".
"Not even a single word came from Lalu appreciating Nitish," he said.
Prasad said that Nitish is "misleading" people on PM's Bihar package.
"You received Rs 12,000 crore during Congress rule out of which Rs 8000 crore was given by us. Rs 1.25 lakh crore is approved by PMO and duly notified. You ask if you want more but you are defying all it is not understandable," he said.
"Nitish ji, when you have the capacity to spend Rs 2.70 lakh crore in coming five years, why do you need the package?" Prasad asked.
He criticised Nitish Kumar government for not bringing any private university and industry in the state.
"Why did not his government bring one single private university in Bihar. The vision document of Nitish says '2005-kanun ka raaj'. Does he wants to say that before 2005 it was the rule of crime..," he said.