Joshi ticks of Gadkari, Cong refuses to cool down

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi disapproved of party chief Nitin Gadkari’s controversial remarks questioning the Congress party on the delay in executing the death sentence for Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru.

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi disapproved of party chief Nitin Gadkari’s controversial remarks questioning the Congress party on the delay in executing the death sentence for Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru.

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“Even strong criticism can be said in appropriate words,” former BJP president Joshi told reporters in Varanasi on Sunday. Joshi’s comment showed that the mummer within the BJP over Gadkari’s utterances was growing though on the face of it, the party was defending its president.

Meanwhile, the Congress expressed stronger disapproval over Gadkari’s utterances. AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh was unsparing in his attack on Gadkari.

Singh, who was Gadkari’s target recently, asked the BJP president to specify his relationship with Ram Jethmalani who had defended Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

On July 4, while criticising Digvijay Singh, Gadkari had said, “A Congress General Secretary is celebrating festivals with families of terrorists in Azamgarh.

The Congress must decide who’s descendant he is — Shivaji and Maharana Pratap, or Aurangzeb?”

Singh said in Lucknow that “Jethmalani who had defended Afzal Guru became a BJP MP thanks to Nitin Gadkari. I will ask him to spell out his relationship with the veteran jurist.”

Defending his remark that Afzal Guru was like a son-in-law for the Congress, Gadkari said in Kolkata on Sunday that there was no question of his tendering an apology.