MUMBAI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on a visit to Mumbai yesterday, donned the role of an angry “Sikh” and drew his sword against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime-minister-in-waiting candidate Lal Krishan Advani.
“The country has witnessed how Advani, the iron man of the BJP, was taking evasive action at the time of the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar in Afghanistan. I am not one amongst those who would sit glued in a corner and shed tears over the martyrdom of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya or lavish praise on the founder of Pakistan Mohammed Ali Jinnah and duck when comes under criticism,” Manmohan said attacking Advani at a press conference at Hotel Grand Hyatt.
The prime minister had arrived here for few hours to campaign for the Congress candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP leader, Manmohan said, should now halt his angry tirade against him and calling him a weak prime minister, as the countrymen had witnessed and experienced during the five years of his tenure as to how strong or weak a prime minister he had been.
“I had never done things of which I thought of doing big and not executing it. And these talents are deep-rooted in Advani. I am also not interested nor feel the need to have a debate with him on the issue of prime minister’s post. The Congress party has already announced his candidature for the prime minister’s post.
He further said, “I am now making my stand clear, because there should not be any misunderstanding among the countrymen due to the constant allegations of Advani about me being a weak prime minister, and there is no personal interest of mine in this matter.”
Manmohan said that everyone has seen as to how this “iron man” of the BJP was missing at the time of the hijacking of the Indian aircraft to Kandahar. After negotiating with the terrorists, the NDA government released all the dreaded three terrorists including Azhar Masood. “Not only this, they even sent a senior BJP leader and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh along with the terrorists to Kandahar,” Manmohan said.
Manmohan also blasted Advani for apologizing to the nation for visiting Pakistan and glorying Mohammed Ali Jinnah. “First, he visited Pakistan and hurt the sentiments of the people of India by glorying Jinnah. After coming under attack on his return to the country, Advani had to apologize to the nation. This is not a thing that I would do like him.”
Election week got off to a high decibel start yesterday with top leaders of various parties escalating rhetoric three days before polls begin.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, campaigning in the northeast, echoed his view. “Advani is answerable to the country for releasing Masood Azhar. This is the same man indulging in terror against India,” she said in Silchar, Assam.
Earlier in the day, Advani had said Sonia should apologize for her statement that there was a greater risk from parties within the country than from terrorists, saying that it was intended as a “slander” to the BJP.
“Her statement is slander and she should apologize or join a debate on where does the danger come — from the BJP or the jihadis, Al-Qaeda or ISI. Maybe she is ignorant of previous Congress leaders,” said Advani.
Sonia’s children Rahul, who represents Amethi in the Lok Sabha, and Priyanka lashed out at Advani too. Without naming Advani, Rahul said in Kochi: “His (Manmohan Singh) opposition is a person of the past... They only speak of what we did. There is no statement coming there about the next five years ... what they intend to do, 1, 2, 3.”
He, too, took up the Kandahar issue to say he and the youth of the country wished to know why Advani said that he was not aware of (then foreign minister) Jaswant Singh going to Kandahar with freed terrorists.
— With input from agencies
