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Sonia Gandhi hits back at BJP on terrorism

Special Correspondent

‘Congress will never join hands with Janata Dal(S)’

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Reaching out: Congress president Sonia Gandhi reaching across the barricade after an election meeting in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Bangalore: There is no question of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government going soft on terrorism like the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said.

She was addressing an election meeting at Krishnarajapuram here on Wednesday.

It was the NDA that had released terrorists and sent them along with its Foreign Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to Kandahar. It was again the BJP that had failed in protecting Parliament and the Raghunath Mandir from terrorists. Yet it was raising a hue and cry about terrorism, she said.

Ms. Gandhi introduced to the voters party candidates A. Krishnappa (Krishnarajapuram), K.J. George (Sarvajnanagar), K.C. Vijaya Kumar (C.V. Raman Nagar), R. Roshan Baig (Shivajinagar), M.A. Harris (Shantinagar), Sayeed Ahmed (Chamarajpet), Gurappa Naidu (Padmanabhanagar), M. Suresh (Jayanagar) and B. Shivanna (Mahadevapura).

The meeting was attended by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Union Minister of State and Karnataka in-charge Prithviraj Chavan, the former Chief Ministers S.M. Krishna and N. Dharam Singh, party’s Manifesto Committee chairman C.K. Jaffer Sharief and the former Union Minister M.V. Rajasekharan.

Earlier in the day, at a rally in Tumkur, Ms. Gandhi said that the Congress had a dream for Karnataka, and sought the support of the people of the State to help the party realise it.

She promised the people that the Congress would provide them a stable government. Ms. Gandhi recalled that in 2004 the Congress had joined hands with the Janata Dal (Secular) because it lacked majority. But the Janata Dal (Secular) had left the alliance in the middle and aligned with fundamentalist groups to form an alternate government, she said.

“The Congress will never join hands with that party again,” she said, and appealed to the people to give the Congress a mandate to be in power for a five-year term.

Ms. Gandhi said that the Congress would provide rice at Rs. 2 a kilo and houses to the poor, and accord priority to solving the problems faced by farmers.

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