BJP says it has right to seek accountability

A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused the BJP of diversionary tactics and said it seemed in a hurry to come to power, the saffron party hit back, saying it was well within its rights as an Opposition party to demand political accountability from him.

A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused the BJP of diversionary tactics and said it seemed in a hurry to come to power, the saffron party hit back, saying it was well within its rights as an Opposition party to demand political accountability from him.

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“The right to ask questions and seek political, constitutional and moral accountability of the Prime Minister is indeed the constitutional and parliamentary obligation of the Opposition. And Mr Prime Minister this is not ‘tu-tu, main-main’,” BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

“If the people have given you the mandate to govern they have also made the Opposition the custodian of their interest and we shall continue to safeguard that whether you call it ‘tu-tu main main’ or seek solace in an Urdu couplet.”

Saying that the Prime Minister’s tenure was ridden with scams, Prasad added, in a reference to Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai, that ministers had lobbied with the Prime Minister to secure benefits for their kin and he had facilitated this.

The BJP has been saying that as the CBI is under the PM, there can’t be a fair investigation in the coal block allocations till he is in office.

The Opposition party has decided to make the PM the prime target of its attack, believing that accusations of complicity in graft against the head of the government will dent the credibility of the UPA government in a major way.

With prospects of a complete washout of this session of Parliament looming large, party leaders are also touring different parts of the country to drill the message in the public mind.