BJP accuses Rahul Gandhi of 'hypocrisy' over stand on Adarsh report

NEW DELHI: BJP today attacked Rahul Gandhi after he disapproved of the move by Congress government in Maharashtra to reject the Adarsh scam report, saying such "hypocrisy" of talking about corruption occasionally will not help his party in the Lok Sabha polls.

The opposition party said Gandhi being an important functionary of the ruling party cannot absolve himself of the "shames" of this government by claiming to be an "outsider", and cannot escape accountability of its wrong-doings which he could have prevented had he chosen to do so.

"Rahul Gandhi's utterances are a command performance of hypocrisy.... Now when elections are approaching, this occasional detachment from the shames of the government is not going to make any impact," BJP's deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Ravi Shankar Prasad told PTI.

He lamented that even though Gandhi is a very significant decision-maker of this government and can even call an Ordinance a "non-sense", he has "always maintained a conspicuous silence" over a series of corruption in his government.

"He did not utter a single word when lakhs and crores of public money was being looted by ministers and leaders of his government," he said.

The BJP leader said he maintained a complete silence when JPC chief P C Chacko of Congress "shielded the corrupt in 2G scam in a collusive report, seriously objected to by the opposition" and remained silent when a person like P J Thomas was appointed the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.

"Rahul Gandhi cannot escape accountability of the wrong- doing of his government which he could have prevented had he chosen so. This also includes price rise, lack of growth and a lot of other ills of his government," he said.

Prasad said Gandhi is an important functionary of the ruling party and thus cannot claim he is an outsider and not an insider.

He said he did not stop the Adarsh scam report from being rejected and neither stopped the Commonwealth Games scam, which caused a lot of embarrassment to the country.