Parrikar, Akhilesh are insensitive, says Congress

The Congress Saturday compared Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to Akhilesh Yadav, his Uttar Pradesh counterpart, saying they were insensitive in hosting events even as people in their states coped with tragedy.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa is busy with preparations for the Sunday rally of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Addressing a press conference at the state headquarters of the Congress, party spokesperson Valanka Alemao said that the Narendra Modi rally was being organised on a grand scale even as "dead bodies are being salvaged from the debris of Goa's biggest building collapse".

Alemao said that if Yadav's much-criticised celebration in his ancestral village of Saifai in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh was insensitive because riot victims in Muzaffarnagar, 300 km away, were in camps enduring the bitter winter chill, then the BJP's euphoric celebration of Narendra Modi's arrival in Goa was "vulgar".

"Goa has just witnessed the biggest building collapse in its history. Over 25 people are dead. The bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble even today. Goa needs to mourn the dead, not celebrate a power hungry politician," Alemao said.

"The only difference, perhaps, between the Saifai celebrations and the Vijay Sankalp rally is that instead of Salman Khan, we have Narendra Modi here," she said.

Alemao was referring to the collapse of an under-construction five-storey building in the south Goan town of Canacona last Saturday which killed 27 labourers who were working at the site.

The BJP is pulling out all the stops to make Modi's rally, scheduled to be held here Sunday, an unprecedented success. Over one lakh people are expected to attend the public meeting.