By IANS,
New Delhi: The Congress Tuesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for lauding Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s appearance before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 2002 Gujarat riots, and asked if underworld fugitive Dawood Ibrahim will be doing a favour by facing the law.
“The BJP is projecting it (Modi’s appearance before SIT) as if it is a favour to the judicial system. If Dawood Ibrahim is brought before the law, will he be doing a favour?” Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said reporters here.
He said the BJP was talking in “an immature manner”.
Tewari said that Modi had to face the SIT because he had not followed “rajdharam (his duty as a ruler)”.
On the BJP’s criticism over party president Sonia Gandhi having been again made National Advisory Council chairperson, Tewari said that she could have become prime minister in 2004 and 2009 but chose not to take the high office.
“Her entire public life is characterised by one principle, that of sacrifice,” he said.
Tewari noted that NAC had worked for some path-breaking legislations during its previous term, among these the Right to Information Act, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Gram Nyayalaya Act.
The BJP said Tuesday that Gandhi’s appointment as chairperson of the NAC had created a “psuedo-constitutional power centre” which would lead to “redundancy” of the post of the prime minister.