Congress president Rahul Gandhi yesterday hit out at the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for showing the door to senior leaders of the party and said that his party respects seniors and will make use of their experience.
“Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and our other senior leaders have much more experience. And we will use their experience,” Rahul said while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here.
He was responding to a question about UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi taking the front seat to push for talks with the other parties in view of the election results on May 23.
“We are not like the BJP. We don’t push our seniors out. But we take the best of our seniors,” he said while slamming the BJP for sidelining several senior leaders of the party like L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and others.
To a question that Modi was using personal attacks against him, he said: “If Modi wants to talk bad about my family then it is up to him. But I would not speak anything bad for his family or him and instead I shall return love to him.” The Congress leader also refused to comment on how many seats the party will win.
He said: “I have said it many times people of the country will decide. And on the basis of the people’s decision everything will be decided. So I would not speak on people’s decision before May 23. And whatever be the results, I will respect the decision of the people,” he said.
The Congress also accused he Election Commission of being “biased” and said that it has a different set of rules for the prime minister and for the opposition leaders.
“It does not look good to say this but the role of the election commission has been biased,” he said, adding “it has different rules for Modi and different rules for us. Partiality is clearly visible,” he said.
“Even the entire election schedule has been made to benefit Modi, but the people of the country understand it,” he said, adding that the Congress believes in the election commission as an institution.
Earlier Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu too accused the election commission of being pro-government and demanded action against BJP’s Bhopal candidate Pragya Thakur for “insulting” Mahatma Gandhi.
Talking to media after meeting EC officials, Naidu said, “The decisions of the election commission are very controversial, one-sided, pro-establishment.” Accusing the EC of supporting the government, Naidu said: “We are fighting against the election commission and it is very unfortunate for all of us”.
He also questioned the EC for ordering re-polling in Andhra Pradesh after 25 days.
The TDP chief said action should be taken against BJP’s Bhopal candidate Pragya Thakur for insulting Mahatma Gandhi.
“Even now you are not taking any action. If it is BJP MPs, prime minister, Amit Shah, you are not taking action. This is not right. I have complained to them (EC officials),” he said.