External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Friday welcomed Rahul Gandhi's opinion on the ordinance related to convicted politicians, saying the Congress Vice-President puts political morality far above any pragmatic or narrow political considerations.
"I think it was felt and perhaps not just by us alone, (but) by many political groups that it was important not to upset midstream and arrangement within legislatures. But there are always two points of view. And I think that even when this was done, it was obviously a fact that the remaining people who would not be happy with it and also the fact that the court may well say this ordinance is just as ultra-virus as the original rules themselves," said Khurshid.
"I think if our party leadership feels that there needs a second look at this, I am sure the party will tell the government to do that," he added.
Khurshid also hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for targetting the UPA Government and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh after Gandhi's criticism of the ordinance.
"It is desperation of the BJP. They want somebody to quit everyday for some reason and the bigger the target greater their voice. If we were to respond in kind, we would have many more reasons to get them all to resign. But I don't think this is serious politics," Khurshid said.
"We are a democratic party and certainly there wasn't a great excitement in doing what we did, but it was a pragmatic necessity felt on basis of consultations that happened with other political parties. If our party finally takes a call and thinks that we should reverse this process, it is only an ordinance and as you know ordinance is temporary and it's only till we get to Parliament next session," he added.
Reacting to Gandhi's comment on the ordinance, the BJP called it a 'desperate and belated' damage control exercise and said the Prime Minister should quit if he had any self-respect.
In a major embarrassment to the Congress-led UPA II Government, Gandhi earlier today 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," he said.
The developments came a day after President Pranab Mukherjee summoned senior Cabinet ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde, Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal for consultations on the ordinance pending before him for signature.
The Union Cabinet had approved an ordinance to reverse the Supreme Court judgment mandating the immediate disqualification of lawmakers convicted for a criminal offence punishable with a jail term of more than two years.
The ordinance seeks to reverse the Supreme Court judgement that had not only disqualified lawmakers convicted of offences with two years or more in jail, but also barred from contesting elections.
