New Delhi: Dismissing as "baseless and misleading" the charge of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh that its leader Sharad Pawar was helping Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rake up Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin issue, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on October 18 hit back at Congress, saying BJP was continuing in power as the party was being led by her.

Dismissing Singh's charge, NCP general secretary Tariq Anwar said, "On the contrary, the Congress is helping the BJP by stubbornly projecting Sonia Gandhi as an alternative to NDA (National Democratic Alliance), though the people of India rejected this claim of Congress in the 1999 elections."

Asserting that Gandhi's foreign origin and her claim for the country's top post was a national issue now and not just confined to NCP, Anwar said Congress by selecting her as its leader had utterly failed to motivate the people to back it up against BJP.

Despite being "communal and corrupt" the BJP was continuing in power because Congress was projecting Gandhi as the leader, he said adding, "Let Congress project any other person as its leader and the BJP will not be in power even for a minute."

The NCP-Congress alliance in Maharashtra was on the brink of collapse earlier this week, with state Congress leaders taking strong exception to Pawar raking up Sonia's foreign origin issue at a party rally in the capital.

PTI