No need to be defensive, fight it out: Sonia to MPs

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked party MPs not to be defensive on the CAG report on coal blocks allocation and aggressively counter the BJP's onslaught against the UPA government and PM Manmohan Singh.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked party MPs not to be defensive on the CAG report on coal blocks allocation and aggressively counter the BJP's onslaught against the UPA government and PM Manmohan Singh.

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"We have done no wrong…there is no need to be defensive," she told a group of Congress MPs who met her soon after the BJP forced adjournment of parliament on the third consecutive day, demanding the PM's resignation over the CAG report.

The MPs who met her included Sandeep Dikshit, Sanjay Nirupam, Deepinder Hooda, Anu Tandon, Jyoti Mirdha and Ranee Narah.

The Congress president agreed that the party should expose the BJP's "obstructionist" tactics. "We met her to convey our viewpoint about how parliament is functioning. We told her that BJP was doing a disservice which should be taken to people," said an MP.

"Gandhi nodded in agreement with what we told her," he claimed. The MPs said they wanted a discussion in parliament on the CAG report.

Later at the party briefing, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi went all out against the BJP, saying the main opposition party was "using the shoulders" of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev in its "game to grab power".

"BJP never does politics on its own strength. It always requires others' shoulders in the game of power," he said, adding the party, which was earlier Jansangh, used shoulders of Ram Manohar Lohia, Jaiprakash Narayan and Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

Rejecting the demand for PM's resignation, Dwivedi alleged that the anti-government campaign showed the "growing frustration" in the BJP over the emergence of a new leadership in the Congress, in an apparent reference to Rahul Gandhi.

"Congress has an ideal combination of young and old leadership. Now they are bothered what will happen to them since the leadership of new generation is emerging in the Congress. Those who cross the age of 60 consider them young seeing their elders."