New Delhi: The BJP continues to be bitter about Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s remarks in Gujarat that the BJP was a party of “liars and peddlers of religion and death”.

Leader of Opposition LK Advani on Monday gave vent to his feelings to union home minister Shivraj Patil.

Patil and external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee had sought Advani’s cooperation and the BJP’s support on the constitutional amendment bill on Darjeeling Autonomous Hill Council, which the UPA government and the Left intends to place before Lok Sabha for passage on Tuesday.

Advani said that his party wanted the bill to be sent before the parliamentary standing committee on ministry of home affairs for further deliberation and scrutiny before it was placed in the House for passage.

Patil, however, insisted that the BJP should support the bill and pass it in its present form.

Advani shot back saying, “How do you expect us to cooperate with you when you bring proposals in haste and want us to nod in agreement, particularly after your leader’s (Sonia) statement about us in Gujarat.

Do you really think that we should support you after what she said about us? If it was an extempore speech, we would have given her the benefit of doubt. But she read out from written text and therefore we feel that it was all pre-planned.”

Without naming the Congress president Advani referred about her again by saying,

“You are saying it would be wrong for us not to support the bill but many wrongs are being committed by the government and it is well known on whose direction all these things are being done.”

In Sonia’s statement, the BJP has found an emotional issue that had so far been lacking in Gujarat elections.

Chief minister Narendra Modi has already hit back hard. Other central leaders who have been visiting the state for campaigning have also picked up the issue to attack the Congress.

Source : DNAIndia