By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress Thursday kept alive its attack on Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani over the Kandahar issue saying he was trying to distance himself from the 1999 plane hijack episode when three terrorists were handed over in exchange for the passengers.
Addressing reporters, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused Advani, who was then union home minister, of shifting the blame.
“Is it not true that Advani in his book clearly said he was not part of the decision making on Kandahar. Is it not equally a fact that the then defence minister George Fernandes in an interview after the Kandahar episode specifically said that Advani was present in the meeting on the Kandahar crisis,” Singhvi said.
“Why is Advani trying to shift blame on the Kandahar issue on the NDA government and Vajpayee (then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and is distancing himself,” he asked.
He said either one of them was lying or the other was incorrect.
The Congress has been targeting Advani for the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government having released three dreaded terrorists in Afghanistan during the Kandahar plane hijack episode in December 1999 as evidence of a man who talks big but does not deliver.