Congress sharpens attack on Modi, says he is self destruct mantra of BJP

NEW DELHI: Congress on Tuesday took a swipe at Narendra Modi latching on to divisions and squabbles within his party over tickets distribution among senior leaders and dubbed the BJP's prime ministerial candidate as "self destruct mantra" of the party.

"Modi is the self destruct mantra of BJP. Last few days implosions and explosions in BJP are only precursor to real firefight in the offing," party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi tweeted today.

In his another comment on Twitter, he said when "Advani, Jaswant, Harin Pathak, Rana, Chaubey, Lalji Tandon cannot trust Modi, how can the nation? When your own people do not belong to you, how can the nation?".

Singhvi's comments came in the wake of back-to-back controversy within the BJP over the issue of tickets involving senior party leaders.

The latest controversy is about ticket denial to senior party leader in Gujarat Harin Pathak. Before this, there was a huge controversy over L K Advani's demands to contest from Bhopal and not from Gandhinagar offered by the party, though Advani finally agreed to accept the party's choice of Gandhinagar.

This was, however, not before a full throttle political spectacles giving a picture of a rift within the BJP.

Lalji Tandon's Lucknow seat was also changed from where BJP president Rajnath Singh is now contesting, while Murli Manohar Joshi had to vacate the Varanasi seat for Modi.

All these incidents were marked by media speculations of these party veterans not comfortable with the rise of a new power equation within the BJP.

Matters turned worse in the case of Jaswant Singh who decided to file his nomination as an independent candidate from Barmer after being denied ticket from where BJP filed Sonaram Chowdhry who was a former Congress MLA.

Launching a veiled attack on Narendra Modi yesterday after filing his nomination, Singh had said the "Namo-Namo tamasha" and the decision-making process in BJP shows the "arrogance" of the 'Emergency era'.