By IANS,
Jammu : Taking on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday likened his criticism of the party’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani to “hit-and-run” tactics and said it was not expected of a prime minister.
BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, addressing a press conference here, said the prime minister was using “different tactics not expected of a prime minister” to “save himself” from a debate with Advani.
“The tactic that the prime minister is using is of hit-and-run,” said Jaitley.
“The prime minister should admit that he is not in a position to reply or participate in a debate,” he said.
On the prime minister’s remark that he had thought of resigning if the Indo-US nuclear deal had not gone through, Jaitley said it was “durbhagya (unfortunate) that people change their stance with time and forget what they have said earlier.”
He said that on Oct 12, 2007, Manmohan Singh while addressing the Hindustan Times summit had said that if the nuclear deal does not go through, one has to “move on in life”.
Recalling that it was the time when the Left parties, which were supporting the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from outside, had threatened to withdraw support over the deal, Jaitley said the prime minister had not said then that he would resign over the issue.
“When asked what he would do if the deal is not signed, he said, and these are his words, ‘If the deal does not go through, it will be disappointing, but one has to live with disappointments and move on in life. We have a lot of unfinished business, ours is not a one-issue government’.”
“However, yesterday he said that he had decided on resigning.”
Manmohan Singh, during an interaction with women journalists in New Delhi Friday evening, had attacked Advani for daring him to a live television debate, and said he did not wish to have a television debate with Advani as he did not want to accord him the privilege of being “an alternative prime minister”.