By IANS,
New Delhi: The Congress Friday sought to steer clear of the controversy involving its Maharashtra unit chief Manikrao Thakre following a TV channel airing footage of his conversation with a party leader about arrangements and the cost of a rally addressed by party president Sonia Gandhi.
“Both the Maharashtra chief minister (Ashok Chavan) and the state unit chief (Thakre) have made statements. There is nothing further to add for the present. If there is anything, we will let you know,” Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said here.
Chavan and Thakre had landed in a controversy after a Marathi TV channel showed a private conversation between Thakre and a former Congress minister in which the two discuss the high cost of organising Friday’s party rally in Wardha.
Responding to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) accusation that Congress organised its rallies on the power of money, Tewari said the party did not need lessons from the BJP. “The way the BJP has ridiculed democracy in Karnataka… It has no right to give any lessons,” Tewari said.
The BJP Friday mounted an attack on the Congress following the controversy involving its two top leaders in Maharashtra.
Party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said it was not new for the Congress to “misuse money power” and alleged that the the party’s high command had created such an atmosphere.
“This the real face of the Congress. The main question is that money is given like this to Congress. Such atmosphere is created from Delhi. The party high command cannot run away from the present controversy,” he said.
The footage aired by the TV channel showed Thakre talking with the Congress leader about money given by the ministers for the rally and Chavan having called to say he would send Rs.2 crore.
Thakre later said that ministers were asked to coordinate with local Congress units to collect funds from villages for booking buses and it did not mean that they were asked to contribute individually. He said proper receipts had been issued for funds collected from the people.
Chavan said that the incident and the hype over it was ridiculous.
He said that the party needed vehicles on a large scale for the rally and the money being talked about had come from the villages. The party was not asking for free supply of buses, he said, adding that he did not have the ability to contribute Rs.2 crore.