Digvijay Singh says heart goes out to Advani, Congress takes potshots at BJP veteran

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Digvijay Singh today said his heart goes out to LK Advani, who had to skip the BJP national executive meet in Goa citing ill-health, as the saffron stalwart was the butt of jibes from the Congress.

The AICC General Secretary also called the BJP "ungrateful" against the backdrop of a sulking 85-year-old Advani staying away from the executive meet for the first time in his entire political career.

"My heart goes out to Advani ji. He brought BJP from 2 to 182 in Lok Sabha. But then the ungrateful BJP is a Party with differences," tweeted Singh.

Asked whether Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi could be projected as a BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate after his anointment as Chief of party's Election Campaign Committee. Singh said, "it was for BJP to decide."

"My heartiest congratulations to Modi," Singh said when asked about Modi's appointment.

Taking potshots at the internal difference within BJP, Union Minister and Congress leader Rajiv Shukla wondered when BJP cannot keep its ten leaders together, how will they keep ministers to function together in a government.

In a dig at Advani, Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said the BJP veteran was "reaping what he had sown."

"Advani is getting a taste of his pills. It was he who had started communal politics in India after 1985-86. Now Modi has projected himself as a more communal person than Advani, and this is the simple reason that the senior most BJP leader has now been sidelined," he told PTI.

"As you sow, so you reap. He had sowed the seeds of communalism in Indian politics. He was replaced by a more communal person," Ahmed claimed.

On micro blogging site Twitter, the Congress spokesperson commented, "Advani hints in his blog that you will have to pay for your sins in your lifetime itself. Is he repenting his role to save Modi in 2002?"

Advani is believed to have backed Modi's continuance as Gujarat Chief Minister after the post-Godhra riots.