Sonia defends PM, derides BJP

Congress president Sonia Gandhi today came out in strong defence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, even as her party refused to buckle under the opposition pressure on the 2G telecom spectrum scam.

She lashed at the opposition for targeting the PM and said, “It is shameful that the person of the Prime Minister’s integrity is being targeted. Everybody knows the Prime Minister is 100 per cent above board.”

This is the first time she has spoken publicly on the issue that has forced a long stalemate in Parliament. Gandhi’s assertions came as the Bihar results were out, where the Congress couldn’t even manage to retain its earlier tally. Top sources in the party described this move as an indication that the ruling UPA is in no mood to give the BJP-led NDA an upper hand.

Added Gandhi: “The opposition should take a lesson from the results of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, when they had targeted the Prime Minister and he had won. The BJP had to pay a heavy price for attempting to destroy the image of the Prime Minister.”

With the BJP deciding not to change its controversial Karnataka chief minister, B S Yeddyurappa, she tried to contrast the two parties’ in acting on corruption charges. She noted former external affairs Minister Natwar Singh was “immediately” removed in such a case. And, recently, Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Chavan were also shown the door over allegations of corruption.

“This is a matter which the party concerned has to decide. As far as the Congress party is concerned, I think all of you know, you have all seen, how we deal with matters of corruption. Starting from the issue of the Volcker deal in which Natwar Singh was involved, we asked him to resign immediately and we set up a judicial inquiry,” Gandhi said to the media at her residence.

“Shashi Tharoor, we asked him to resign. As soon as the US President left, we asked the Maharastra Chief Minister to resign. It was planned before, but we did not want to execute it till the President left,” she added.

With her party strongly resisting the opposition demand for an MPs’ probe on the 2G spectrum scam allegations, Gandhi said: “When we compare the action that our party takes with the action the other party takes, then I think it is for the people to judge, and I am confident that they will judge us more positively than other parties.” She also described corruption as “a disease” and spoke of needing an “effective mechanism” to deal with it.