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The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have entered into a no-holds-barred contest of low blows as elections advance.
Despite strong BJP protests, the official Congress party website continued to post a picture of former National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decrying the 2002 Gujarat riots and recalling his comment that he agreed with those who felt Narendra Modi should have resigned from chief ministership of the state after so many lost their lives.
It is highly unusual for a political party to post a picture and comments of a prime minister from its closest rival. The Madhya Pradesh BJP on Friday filed a police complaint against Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleging her party's website resorted to false statements while using Vajpayee's name on it. The complaint was filed by state party spokesman Vijendra Singh Sisodiya.
In the complaint, the party said the Congress was resorting to "false statements" to entice voters. And, sought action against the Congress president under various sections of the penal code and cyber law.
Last week, the Congress had made much of The Economist magazine disapproving Modi's candidature as Prime Minister. This week, the website featured an article in the UK's Guardian newspaper, which said "Narendra Modi, a man with a massacre on his hands, is not a reasonable choice for India."
The Congress has also launched a campaign about Modi's wife. Accompanied by many nudge-nudge, wink-wink statements (Anand Sharma said now the nation knew Modi was married, congratulations were in order), the Congress launched a frontal attack on Modi for not disclosing his marital status.
However, as the BJP, especially its information technology brigade, was expecting this, they too went into overdrive. Anonymous emails said if Modi had not declared he had a wife, neither had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his affidavit.
Comparing Modi to Lord Buddha, who renounced the world, his wife and son, the emails said Modi had kept silent about his wife because he wanted to uphold the dignity of women. All he had ever wanted to do was serve "Mother India" and he'd severed ties with his family early in life to do this through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The BJP also threatened to bring out skeletons of a personal nature in the cupboard of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Party seniors Ravi Shankar Prasad and Venkaiah Naidu said on Friday the Congress' attack on the BJP's prime ministerial candidate on the issue of his marriage would "boomerang".
