KUSHINAGAR: Union minister Smriti Irani accused the Congress on Sunday of colluding with those who had killed innocent people.
Addressing an election meeting in Kushinagar, Irani hit out at Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, saying she made Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had embraced Pakistan's army chief and said Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is his brother, the president of the Punjab Congress.
"If the Gandhi family has the courage, it should refute my allegations," she added.
In an apparent reference to Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money-laundering case, Irani alleged that the Congress is shielding a person who has links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who was involved in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.
Taking a jibe at the "ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon" (I am a girl and I can fight) slogan of the Congress for the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the Union minister for women and child development said the boat of the grand old party is sinking and it has handed over the charge of the sinking boat to women.
"They emerge as chunavjeevi at the time of elections and come up with a new formula, some times in the name of caste, some times in the name of religion," she said.
Irani alleged that during the COVID-19 crisis, the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were nowhere to be seen.
"It was the BJP that went from house to house distributing masks and ration. Priyanka is sad over the fact that ration was distributed among poor people. Had there been an SP-BSP government, would the poor have got the ration?" she asked the gathering.
Taking a jibe at the SP, the Union minister said, "Those who had once fired bullets on the devotees of Lord Ram are telling people that Lord Krishna comes in their dreams. I would like to tell them that in kalyug, Lord Krishna will never come to save criminals. God never sides with those who give shelter to people insulting women."
Referring to the Gandhis, she said a member of a family that had once said there was no Ram is moving from one temple to another wearing the sacred thread.
Kushinagar is scheduled to go to polls in the sixth round of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh election on March 3.