Mangalore: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (Apr 22, 2004) accused the Congress of "maligning" Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by linking him to the Lucknow stampede that claimed 22 lives and sought to disown its responsibility from the incident.

"The Congress is maligning the image of the Prime Minister in the incident accusing him of being responsible, which is far from the truth," BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu asserted at a press conference.

Elections 2004-The Drama unfolds...
Political Parties in India

Naidu said neither the BJP nor Prime Minister were responsible and its leader Lalji Tandon, during whose birthday celebrations the incident happened, was not the election agent of Vajpayee.

Naidu said that the Congress has become nervous after the first phase of elections in the country and was trying to find fault with everything including opinion and exit polls.

He said there was no surprise if Congress party finds fault with elections and themselves after loosing polls.

Charging that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was criticising BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government and Vajpayee on developmental issues, he challenged her to share a platform for debate.

Expressing displeasure over missing of names of voters, he wanted the Election Commission to take a serious note of it.