UPA has done most to fight corruption: Sonia

Oct 18, 2012 |

Mangalore

A combative Sonia Gandhi today sought to deflect attacks on the Congress over corruption by accusing the BJP of running corrupt governments in several states, affirming that her party has done more to fight this “cancer” than others.

“We all know corruption is a disease, a cancer. Who does it affect the most, it is the poor. No other party has done what UPA has done to fight corruption. We brought the RTI because we genuinely want to fight corruption," she said addressing a public meeting here.
Pepping up the Congress cadres for the next year's Assembly elections, Mrs Gandhi accused the BJP of "just pretending" to fight corruption and said it was running corrupt governments in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
"This is the real question you must ask. These are the answers you must get," she said, adding the people of Karnataka are "disenchanted with the corrupt government" in the state.
Talking about the party's seriousness in fighting corruption, the Congress president said, "No other party has done more to fight corruption than the Congress and UPA. We brought RTI legislation, not BJP, not NDA. It is through the RTI that these scandals are coming out."
Mrs Gandhi said the UPA government wanted to pass the Lokpal Bill in Parliament but the BJP had obstructed it.
"We got it passed in the Lok Sabha. Who stopped it in the Rajya Sabha? It was BJP," she said and asked, "do they want to fight corruption?"
She also accused the BJP of dividing societies on communal lines and said the Congress should fight these "communal" forces.
"We have to see the forces of communalism are defeated... We must stand up and fight these forces. We must fight communalism regardless of where it originates from," Mrs Gandhi said referring to the secular traditions upheld in Mangalore city for ages.
She expressed confidence that people of Karnataka will deliver the answers in the coming elections. However, she cautioned the Congress cadres against complacence and wanted them to work unitedly against the BJP.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/196240" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-9572c4418736280a3398e42fd8d868e0" value="form-9572c4418736280a3398e42fd8d868e0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85601558" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>