Slamming the Opposition for attacking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the wake of the alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday asserted that people know about Dr Singh, who is “100 per cent above board”.
Mrs Gandhi also criticised the BJP for letting tainted Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to continue in office and compared the saffron party’s decision with that of Congress’ and the UPA’s track record on the issue of corruption. However, the BJP hit back saying the Congress seems to have “numerically more corrupt people”.
Breaking her silence for the first time since the 2G spectrum controversy surfaced, the Congress president reminded the BJP that it had to pay a price for trying to “destroy the image” of the Prime Minister during the last Lok Sabha elections and suggested that the party should learn “lesson” from its past experience.
In a bid to counter the BJP’s attempt to corner the government over the issue of alleged 2G spectrum scam, Mrs Gandhi unsparingly attacked the saffron party for allowing the Karnataka chief minister to continue in the office and compared this with the Congress’ and the UPA’s decisions to make Union ministers Natwar Singh, Shashi Tharoor and A. Raja and Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan to resign in the wake of corruption charges.
“While our party had removed Natwar Singh, Tharoor and Chavan over allegations of corruption, a similar step was not being taken by the BJP in the case of Yeddyurappa. In the present case (of 2G), there was a minister (A. Raja), we asked him to resign,” Mrs Gandhi said, adding that this was a matter which “the party concerned has to decide”.
“As far as the Congress Party is concerned, I think all of you know, you have all seen how we deal with matters of corruption. Starting from the issue of Volcker deal in which Natwar Singh was involved, we asked him to resign immediately and we set up a judicial inquiry. Shashi Tharoor, we asked him to resign. The chief minister of Maharashtra, immediately as soon as US President (Barack) Obama left, we asked him to resign. It was planned before but we did not want to execute it till the President left because he was going to Maharashtra,” Mrs Gandhi said.
Comparing the action taken by the Congress and the BJP in respective cases of corruption, the Congress president said people of the country would judge both the parties.