Predicting the Congress Party's loss in the 2014 general elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Prakash Javadekar accused the ruling party of suffering from 'Modi phobia'.
Reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh call for secular forces of the country to unite against the 'onslaught' of Modi, Javadekar said:" The Prime Minister has taken Modi's name. This proves the Congress fears him. They have Modi phobia...The Congress will surely lose (in 2014)."
Javadekar used the opportunity to praise President Pranab Mukherjee for expressing his concerns over the cabinet-approved ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers.
"The ordinance wasn't passed. All credit goes to our president for not signing the blank paper and for raising the right questions," Javadekar said.
Earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday uncharacteristically took a jibe at the Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate, when he said the nation's secular forces must unite to face the 'onslaught' of the Gujarat chief minister.
"I sincerely hope that all secular forces would combine to face the onslaught of people like Mr. Narendra Modi. And, I have every reason to believe that that will happen. You wait for some time before the people realise what they are up against," Dr. Singh said onboard Air India One, when asked if Modi is a threat to the nation's secular polity.
The Prime Minister was speaking shortly before landing in New Delhi on Tuesday night from Frankfurt, Germany.
According to media reports, the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are scheduled to meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the national capital tomorrow (October 2), on the issue, as the latter has to decide whether to give it his assent, or send it back to the government for reconsideration.
The cabinet-approved ordinance on convicted lawmakers has been a politically sensitive issue in the last week.
On September 27, in a major embarrassment to the ruling UPA, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi dubbed the ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as 'complete nonsense', and said it should be torn up and thrown away.
"I personally think what the government is doing on the ordinance is wrong. It was a political decision, every party does it, and there is a time to stop this nonsense," Gandhi had said in New Delhi.
