Sonia backs PM, slams BJP for 'making fun' (Lead, changing dateline)

Congress president Sonia Gandhi Monday lashed out out BJP for "making fun" of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and asserted that the "whole party stands behind him".

"They make fun of our party, they make fun of our prime minister," she told a huge Congress rally in this town, about 80 km from Bangalore.

"The whole party stands behind the prime minister," Gandhi declared at the rally held to thank people of Karnataka for electing the Congress to power in the state in the May 5 assembly elections.

The was also intended to thank people of Mandya and neighbouring Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituencies for electing Congress candidates in the Aug 21 bypolls to the two seats.

Gandhi said the Bharatiya Janata Party "divides people" while "we bind the people together".

She said the BJP tried to scuttle the "historic" food security bill in parliament by saying it was against farmers.

"We are proud of our farmers and farmers will always be the centre of our policies," she added.

Terming the food security bill, land acquisition bill, RTI and measures to protect interests of women as "historic", Gandhi said "no other government has achieved what the UPA (United Progressive Alliance government) has been able to in the last ten years".

She questioned why the BJP did not bring these bills when it led the central government or was in power in Karnataka. The BJP lost to the Congress in the May assembly election.

"They do not care for you," Gandhi told the rally.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G. Parameshwara, former Karnataka chief minister S. M. Krishna, who hails from Mandya, union ministers Mallikarjun Kharge, M. Veerappa Moily, Oscar Fernandes, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, popular Kannada actor and state minister M.H. Ambareesh, who also belongs to Mandya, and newly elected Lok Sabha members popular Kannada film actor Ramya from Mandya and D. K. Suresh from Bangalore Rural shared the dais with Gandhi.