The Hindu : Congress hits back at Pawar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 12, 2003

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Congress hits back at Pawar

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 11. The Congress today hit back at the Nationalist Congress Party chief, Sharad Pawar, for suggesting that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were working in tandem.

Mr. Pawar said at an election rally in the Capital on Friday that the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, and the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had a tacit understanding and that both did not attack each other. The Congress contradicted it as a "wholly erroneous and misleading statement".

On the other hand, the Congress sought to point out the number of instances the party chief chose to act. The party chief spokesperson, S. Jaipal Reddy, said Mr. Pawar had obviously forgotten that Ms. Gandhi had, during the no-confidence motion, forcefully highlighted nine issues of fundamental national importance in which the BJP-led Government had failed miserably.

"Mr. Pawar chose not to participate in that debate. This in itself should convince public opinion about the total lack of veracity of the statement issued by Mr. Pawar," Mr. Reddy said.

He said that Mr. Pawar had deliberately refrained from making any comment on the Tehelka expose and had not taken part in the boycott of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, to which most Opposition parties had been a party. "It's therefore clear that Mr. Pawar is least qualified to deliver lectures on the role that the Opposition should play in our polity," he said.

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