NEW DELHI, 2 April 2004 — Taking a dig at the joint rally held yesterday in Solapur by Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said yesterday: “I do not trust this alliance They should have avoided holding the rally it at least on April Fool’s Day.”

He was addressing an election rally in a tribal dominated area in Thane district (Maharashtra).

Without directly naming Sonia, Vajpayee also used the occasion to raise the issue of her foreign origin. “Whether a foreigner can occupy a high office in the country is a matter of debate which should take place in a calm and composed atmosphere,” he said. It was his first reference to her foreign origin during this election campaign.

While Vajpayee has joined his party colleagues in targeting the Congress party by referring to its leader’s foreign origin, this has not dissuaded Sonia from continuing with her campaign.

Rather, she shared the stage yesterday for the first time with NCP leader Sharad Pawar, who parted ways with the Congress in 1999 because of her foreign origin. The issue bears no relevance for Pawar now. The joint rally held by Sonia and Pawar signaled the unity of Cong-NCP alliance to defeat the right-wing, extremist forces associated with the Sangh Parivar.

Launching the joint Congress-NCP campaign, Sonia toured four Lok Sabha constituencies of Latur, Osmanabad, Solapur and Pandharpur. She was accompanied by NCP chief Pawar, Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister, Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, AICC General Secretary Vylar Ravi and Shivraj Patil.

Sonia’s tour began from Marathwada and ended with the public rally in west Maharashtra town of Solapur

Solapur is the home ground of Shinde, whose wife Ujwala is contesting on a Congress ticket. Congress lost this constituency to the BJP in a by-election.

Urging voters to defeat the NDA government at the center for having failed to lived up to its promises and having aggravated their problems, she said at Latur, “I know you are facing several problems, particularly agriculturists and unemployed youths, coupled with spiraling rise in prices.”

“The present state of affairs is mainly due to the wrong policies of the BJP led NDA government and therefore it is essential to dislodge this government,” Sonia said.

Calling upon the people to use the weapon that they possessed — the vote — rightly and wisely against those who had belied their hopes, Sonia asked them to vote out the NDA government and vote in the Congress.

Meanwhile, in the capital city, the Congress lashed out at the BJP for denigrating the names of national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jaiprakash Narayan and B.R. Ambedkar by incorporating them into its “Vision Document” along with Sangh RSS leaders.