By IANS,
New Delhi : Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the arrest of former Karnataka minister and mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy and its stalling of parliament over the appointment of the Gujarat Lokayukta, the Congress Tuesday accused the oppposition party of “double-speak” and “hypocrisy”.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that BJP should specify if it supported Reddy brothers.
“Does the BJP support the Reddy brothers? That is the question sought to be camouflaged,” he said.
He said the Reddy brothers were an “intrinsic and integral part” of the BJP with several members of the family occupying plum positions in the previous B.S. Yeddyurappa ministry in Karnataka and one of them being minister in-charge of Bellary district.
It is like “making Dracula the head of the blood bank,” he said, adding that “guardians were made into predators and predators into guardians in Bellary”.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had Monday arrested Janardhana Reddy, a director of Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) and his relative B. Srinivasa Reddy, the managing director of OMC, at Bellary in Karnataka.
The “firebrand” Janardhana Reddy was infrastructure development and tourism minister for 38 months from May 2008 to July 2011 in the BJP’s first government in Karnataka. His brother G. Karunakara Reddy was the revenue minister.
Singhvi said BJP leaders had been speaking in different voices after arrest of Janardhana Reddy.
“Hypocrisy and doublespeak have become the hallmarks of the opposition party. What is happening in Karnataka takes the cake. In Gujarat it is continuous chain of preaching without practice,” he said.
Singhvi said BJP had been disrupting parliament proceedings over the appointment of Justice (retd) R.A. Mehta as the Lokayukta by Gujarat Governor Kamala Beniwal when the party had already moved court on the issue.
“How can it lead to continuous disruptions,” Singhvi asked.
The BJP has alleged that the governor had appointed the Lokayukta without consulting the Narendra Modi government.
Singhvi said that recommendations made by chief justice of the Gujarat High Court for appointment of Lokayukta have been followed since 1987.