Sonia-PM ties at its best,says Cong

“Ek sawal paida karne ki koshish ki gayi hai ki Congress aur Prime Minister mein doori hai (an attempt has been made to create an issue that there is a rift between the Congress and the PM). There cannot be a bigger lie than this. The kind of understanding that is there between the Congress president and the PM today was neither there in the past nor could perhaps ever be,” AICC media department chairman Janardan Dwivedi told reporters. “The Congress president clarified only yesterday that the Congress is fully behind him. They (BJP) should remember what equations were there between the PM and the Deputy PM (during the NDA regime).”

Known to be a man of few words,Dwivedi’s elaborate statement on equations between Sonia and Singh came as a surprise to many partymen. While he was reacting to senior BJP leader L K Advani’s attack on the UPA government earlier in the day,there was no reference to Sonia-Singh relationship in the Opposition leader’s remarks.

Dwivedi’s statement came in the backdrop of what often appeared to be a conscious attempt by the ruling party to distance itself from the government on contentious issues.

While the government was under attack from Opposition parties over alleged irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation,the party had distanced itself maintaining that the matter was sub-judice and the CAG report was yet to be tabled in Parliament. It was only days after Telecom Minister A Raja’s resignation that spokesman Manish Tewari questioned the “presumptive loss” to the exchequer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore,as mentioned in the CAG report,claiming that a “defaulter” company had been used to compute the loss.

As the UPA government is under attack from the Opposition over the appointment of P J Thomas as CVC,the ruling party has chosen to look the other way.

Asked about Supreme Court’s strong observation on CVC’s appointment,party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said on November 23 that it was not for the party to respond. Party spokespersons have now been asked not to react on CVC issue,it was reliably learnt.

Meanwhile,reacting to the Opposition’s plan to hold nationwide rallies on 2G spectrum and other scams,Dwivedi said the Congress is prepared for every challenge and will,in coming days,actively go to the people to tell them the truth and expose the Opposition’s gameplan.