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Cong. reacts sharply to BJP's remark against Sonia

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 21. The Congress today reacted sharply to the Bharatiya Janata Party questioning the Indianness of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and said the party had shown "utter disregard" for the Constitution, the judgment of the Supreme Court and the supremacy of the popular will in determining the Prime Ministership of India.

Joining issue with the BJP general secretary, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the Congress chief spokesman, S. Jaipal Reddy, in a statement said that instead of "parroting tutored lines", the BJP must recognise the truth that Ms. Gandhi was not just the president of the Congress but also the Opposition Leader in the Lok Sabha. "Unlike some of her compulsive detractors", Ms. Gandhi had won elections with thumping margins after entering politics to strengthen the Congress and the democratic polity in the country, he said. Ms. Gandhi did not require any certificate of Indianness from people "who are in politics with the pernicious agenda of holding the country to ransom through divisive communal rhetoric," he added.

In an apparent reference to the Nationalist Congress Party leaders, who recently raked up Ms. Gandhi's `foreign origin', the Congress emphasised that some of those who were engaged in a "malicious and motivated propaganda" against her "are the same that had gone running to Ms. Gandhi and requested her to save the Congress by assuming its leadership."

The Congress wanted to know how the same leaders now wanted the people to believe that India's "premier political party, which is in power in 14 States" was not safe under its present leadership.

The people were aware that those "feigning concern" for national interest actually remained silent when the Lok Sabha was debating the no-confidence motion against the Vajpayee Government for its failures.

The Punjab Agriculture Minister, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, today condemned the BJP's statement and described it as "immature and politically motivated".

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