Accusing the Congress of indulging in “pretended aggression” to deflect attention from its failures, the main Opposition BJP on Sunday claimed the Congress was suffering from a “siege mentality”. The BJP asked the Congress to “introspect” as how it missed out another opportunity to answer to people on the core issues and challenges.
“The Congress party is suffering from a mentality of a party under siege. Sonia Gandhi’s speech (at the Congress plenary) sounds like the reaction of a party under siege. Instead of answering calls from the people on core issues, we see her replicating the Congress conduct when they were under attack for the Bofors scandal,” BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said in a statement.
The BJP also alleged that Congress allegations of a “conspiracy against secularism” were not substantiated. The party said that the Congress was trying to deflect attention from issues like non-performance of the UPA-II, its “alienation” from the people and “mistrust” among its allies.
BJP national spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I wonder where the conspiracy is happening. They are still not sure on what their position is on secularism. What is their stand on secularism? Gandhi has spoken about minority and majority fundamentalism. I have a feeling that the Congress is having a churning on what constitutes terror in their definition.” Ms Sitharaman said that Ms Gandhi spoke as if she was the Leader of Opposition and forgot that she is the president of the ruling party.