Sonia ignores Volcker at Cong MPs' meet

Days after the party's comprehensive defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi spoke to party MPs concentrating on issues that would unite the party instead of dividing it.

Accordingly she did not refer at all to the Volcker Committee report that alleged payoffs made by one her ministers and her party to gain oil contracts.

Instead the Congress chief she asked the government to send a "loud and clear" message that there would be no compromise in combating terrorism and underscored that terrorist attacks from across the border should cease for continuation of the peace process with Pakistan.

"Let the message go out loud and clear that there will simply be no compromise whatsoever in combating terrorism," Gandhi, who is also UPA chairperson, said addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party.

The party supported the continuation of Indo-Pak peace process, she said but added that 'while we move forward on the path of dialogue let us be categorical and unequivocal in insisting that terrorist attacks that are masterminded from across our western border must cease'.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had spoken a number of times on how Pakistan was not fulfilling its commitments and pledges to stop providing sanctuary to terrorist groups, she said.

Her address referred only in passing to the Bihar elections where she hinted that differences between two UPA constituents Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan led to the UPA's defeat and the rise of communal forces.