Cong adopting double standard on corruption issues, says BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has gone all out to defend the home minister P Chidambaram in 2G scam even as the latter was facing the same charge as former Telecom minister A Raja.

“The nature of charges and evidences against both Chidambaram and Raja are identical, causing enormous loss to the exchequer in the 2G scam,” BJP national spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad told reporters.

But, Congress and the Prime Minister have chosen to defend Chidambaram and repose their full trust in him but left Raja to fight his own battle as he belonged to an alliance partner DMK, he said.

Observing that the Prime Minister’s clean chit to Chidambaram did not absolve him of the corruption charges in the 2G scam, Prasad reminded that Singh had also given clean chit to Raja at least on three occasions between 2009 and 2011.

Prasad criticised Congress president Sonia Gandhi for her silence on various scams tumbling out of the cupboard of UPA government. Prasad also raised the cash-for-vote scam and the black money issue to castigate Congress for its alleged complicity in the corruption. The whistle-blowers in the cash-for-vote scam were jailed while those who benefited from the scam remained at large, he said. According to the BJP leader Congress has never shown the zeal to get back the black money stashed in foreign banks.

Prasad said BJP stood for good governance and clean politics. “The good governance and clean politics are the twin mottoes of Advani”s Jan Chetna Yatra that will crisscross 23 states and four union territories from October 11,” he said.

The senior BJP leader said BJP has been striving to provide good governance and clean politics in the states ruled by the party on its own or with the allies.