Saturday, May 28 2005 19:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) today (May 28, 2005) took strong exception to the absence of Congress and UPA (United Progressive Alliance) leaders at a function in the Parliament House to pay floral tributes to freedom fighter and Sangh Parivar icon Veer Savarkar on the occasion of his 122nd birth anniversary and charged them with "dividing national leaders on party lines".

Protesting against the absence of the Congress and UPA leaders, party spokesperson Sushma Swaraj claimed that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had promised to attend the ceremony but he did not turn up though his staff did.

Attributing Azad's last minute decision to "directions" from party higher-ups, she said, "The Parliamentary Affairs Minister has to rise above party politics".

Swaraj recalled that as Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Government, she first went and met then Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi and presented her first bouquet.

"This Government has no respect for the decency and courtesy of democracy," she said.

Swaraj recalled that the Congress leaders had boycotted the installation of Savarkar's portrait in the Central Hall though a Committee comprising veteran leaders of all parties had cleared the same.

Swaraj had last year staged protests against the Government's decision to remove Savarkar's name from a plaque in the Cellular Jail complex in Port Blair.