Taking a jibe at the Congress top brass for their tirade against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Friday said that it's easy to give a byte than to speak in the parliament.
Irani said the External Affairs Minister's statement in the Lok Sabha on the Lalit Modi controversy is itself a proof that it is a challenge posted before the opposition parties to bring any evidence if they can.
"The Congress Party is moving away from discussion and the Lok Sabha because they don't have any proof of the allegations that they are making. It is easy for them to give a byte of one and a half minute than to speak for one and a half hour with the support of a paper in Parliament," she added.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi today criticised Swaraj over her clarification on the controversy, saying she is an expert at ' theatrics'.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also echoed similar sentiments and accused Swaraj of keeping the External Affairs Ministry in dark on the issue. Rahul also hit back at Swaraj over her 'emotional' clarification, saying the Congress president would have never done the same.
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Swaraj had made an emotional statement in the Lok Sabha yesterday, saying she had helped Lalit Modi's cancer-stricken wife and not the IPL chief.
"I want to know what Soniaji would have done if she was in my place? Would she have let the woman die?" she asked the Congress president.
The External Affairs Minister had also insisted that she had made "no request or recommendation" to the UK Government for Lalit Modi's travel documents but had left the decision to Britain.
However, the Congress Party, which is yet again protesting at the Gandhi statue in the Parliament today, said that her tear-jerker was an 'apology of a defence and hogwash' as Lalit Modi was given travel papers only after her intervention.
