I used harsh language, admits Rahul
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New Delhi: In a major damage control move, Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi today admitted that he had used harsh words on the ordinance on protecting convicted law-makers. He did so because he “spoke from the heart and should not be penalised for it.”
Answering a question in Gujarat, he said “My mother told me the words I used were wrong.” However he did not say a formal sorry or express regret.
Rahul’s statement is seen by many as a move to mend fences with the Prime Minister.
In a major embarrassment to the UPA government, Rahul Gandhi last Friday had denounced the controversial ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as ‘complete nonsense’ and said what ‘our government has done is wrong’.
Making a surprise brief appearance at a meet-the-press programme of his party's general secretary Ajay Maken at the Press Club here, he said the ordinance should be ‘torn up and thrown away’.
The statement caught Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was on a US visit, off guard.
Storming into the programme, the Congress Vice President said before coming there he asked Maken about what was happening and Maken gave him a political line about the ordinance that "everybody will give you, the Congress will give you, the BJP will give you". "Now, I will tell you what is my opinion on the ordinance. It is complete nonsense, it should be torn up and thrown away. It is my personal opinion," he said.
Rahul said that the arguments given in ‘my organisation’ is that ‘we need to do this because of political considerations. Everybody is doing this. The Congress does this, the BJP does this, the Samajwadi Party, the JD(U) does this." "It is time to stop this nonsense, political parties, mine and all others....If you want to fight corruption in the country whether it is Congress Party or BJP, we cannot continue making these small compromises. Because if we make these small compromises, then we compromise everywhere."
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