Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) Congress Monday took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani over his planned rath yatra against corruption, saying that it was another reflection of his “buring desire to change his permanent status as prime minister-in-waiting”.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said the BJP should list out the specific anti-corruption measures taken by the party during National Democratic Alliance’s rule from 1998 to 2004.

“Please list atleast five such important steps you took in those six years. Secondly, did you ever whisper word Lokpal in those six years? Did you execute 50 or 70 new bilateral agreements regarding black money? Did you even whisper about the task force on black money? Did you list the discretionary powers in the state and central government so that they can be eliminated to reduce corruption?” he said.

He said the country “is waiting with baited breath” for the BJP and Advani to tell how the ‘rath yatra’ will reduce corruption.

“How will it reduce corruption? We can only guess, perhaps by creating awareness and memory tag for the janata in that ‘rath yatra’, for example, by having (former Karnataka chief minister B.S.) Yeddyurappa as ’saarthi (charioteer)’ of the rath, (former Uttarakhand chief minister) Mr. (Ramesh) Pokhriyal as its foot soldier, (former BJP chief) Mr. Bangaru Laxman and Mr. (Dilip Singh) Judeo on both sides of the rath as poster boys and Mr. Ananth Kumar as convener,” he said.

Singhvi said perhaps the reasons behind the yatra were ulterior.

“We would request the BJP to eliminate corruption from politics, not to play politics on corruption. We do hope and trust that Mr. Advani’s burning desire to change his permanent status as prime minister-in-waiting will not let him and the BJP overpower things which were heavily disturbed last time around when the prime minister-in-waiting tried his ‘rath yatra’ many, many years ago,” Singhvi said.

The Congress spokesman said that the reports that the controversial former Karnataka minister G. Janardhana Reddy had footed the hotel bill of a “friend” of BJP chief Nitin Gadkari “were not even the tip of the iceberg”.

“We are interested in the iceberg. Wait. This is not even interval. It is a long long movie. This is an unfolding evolving story,” he said.

He said if the BJP had any concrete measure against corruption, the country will back such suggestions but “if it is gimmickry, if it is grandstanding, if it is sensationalism, if it is slogan, then please come clean that it is not corruption you want to eliminate from politics but you want to play politics on the issue of corruption”.