Giving back in good measure what was thrown at him, an unusually combative Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate LK Advani saying the BJP’s “Iron Man” had “melted” during the Kandahar hijack and was “weeping in a corner” when Babri Masjid was destroyed by hoodlums in 1992.
In a no-holds-barred attack on the leader of Opposition at a press conference in Mumbai, Singh said,“I would not have been found weeping in the corner, when a mob of hoodlums was destroying the centuries-old mosque”.
The usually soft-spoken Singh has traded verbal punches with Advani in recent days but today’s attack at a press conference here was the sharpest.
“I am accountable to people as the prime minister of the country and since these are election times, people expect I should reply to the accusations levelled against me, although I don’t find it necessary to reply to such accusations which lack any credibility,” the prime minister added.
Targeting Advani on the controversy surrounding his pro-Jinnah comments, the prime minister said: “I would not say things in Pakistan that offend every Indian and then abandon the stance when it became inconvenient within the party.”
In an obvious reference to the Kandahar plane hijack episode in 1999, Singh said the difference between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is “they (NDA government) released terrorists while we killed nine and captured one alive”.
The prime minister also did not spare Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saying no one can claim that Gujarat could be called a developed state since around 1,200 were “butchered” in the 2002 riots there.
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“How can one take credit for the development of the state when 1,200 people were butchered and the state administration looked in the other direction?”
He also said the Gujarat riots as well as the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage were a “blot” on the secular image of the country.
Replying to a question about Rahul Gandhi, Singh said the Congress general secretary has all the qualities to be a good prime minister. “He (Rahul) has all the qualities to lead the country and as it is a practice the world over, power must be handed over to younger people”.
Asked whether the recent incident of a Sikh journalist lobbing shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram prompted his party to withdraw tickets to party leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, the prime minister said there were protests against their candidature and taking this into consideration, the Congress took the decision.