Congress turns the tables, takes fight to Oppn camp

Battling an Opposition onslaught on a number of issues, a combative Congress went on the offensive on Sunday. Saroj Nagi & Aurangzeb Naqshbandi report.

Battling an Opposition onslaught on a number of issues, a combative Congress went on the offensive on Sunday.

HT Image

The party launched a blistering attack on the BJP-RSS over communalism, terror, corruption and the derailment of Parliament's winter session. It demanded a probe into "the links between terrorists and the RSS and its sister organisations that has been uncovered in some recent cases" maintaining that any form of terrorism must be dealt with firmly.

After Congress president Sonia Gandhi underlined secularism as the party's core ideal and condemned both majority and minority communalism — without naming the BJP-RSS or any other outfit — over 10,000 delegates at the party's plenary session endorsed the political resolution which said "the role of religious fundamentalist organisations in challenging the security of the nation can no longer be ignored".

Between them, Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee and Digvijaya Singh tore into the main Opposition.

Singh compared the BJP-RSS's "hatred" of Muslims to that of the Nazis towards the Jews and alleged that the "roots of terrorism" in India lay in LK Advani's 1990 rath yatra.

Accusing the BJP of holding the view that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims, he counterposed: "We can apply the same logic and say that all Hindus are not terrorists but all Hindu terrorists arrested in various blast cases are RSS activists."

Mukherjee accused the BJP of subverting the Constitution by stalling Parliament over the 2G spectrum issue and insinuated that such actions fostered fascism. The government, he said, rejected the JPC demand not because it had something to hide, but because this was against norms and rules.

Sonia Gandhi lashed out at the BJP, Left and other parties on corruption by comparing her party's action against the menace with the inaction of others in their states.

"Even when no charge has been established, we have asked ministers and chief ministers to step down, pending inquiry. How many other parties can make such a claim? Can the BJP do so in regard to Karnataka?"

The political resolution charged that the Left, after withdrawing support from UPA-I, has been working in tandem with the BJP in opposing the Congress and UPA.