Sonia Gandhi attacks PM Narendra Modi, says 'Mann ki baat' man on 'Maun Vrat'

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has declared there will be not letup in her party’s protest inside and outside Parliament over LaMO and Vyapam issues and launched a frontal attack on PM Narendra Modi saying “the champion of Mann Ki Baat (a reference of PM’s periodical radio broadcast) appears to have retreated to Maun Vrat,” after the two scandals hit his government.

Addressing the general body of the Congress parliamentary party on Monday ahead of the all-party meet, Gandhi said, “the prime minister is conspicuous by his deafening silence on the blatant transgressions by his external affairs minister and two chief ministers.” This, despite, “the prime minister had turned out to be a master re-packager, a skillful salesman, a sharp headlinegrabber and a clever news manager.”

Making clear that her party won’t pipe down from the Lamo and Vyapam protests and demands, she said, “the BJP is the author of ‘resign now, debate later’ principle which it had used in at least five occasions during the UPA rule. We are only following it.”

Warning the NDA regime that using its numerical strength as a source of “arrogance rather than responsibility” and trying to “substitute investigation by mere discussion” won’t work, she said, “this is unacceptable. The BJP’s stand of discussion and dialogue first and action later is not acceptable to Congress.

We are raising very important issue with strong evidence, but the government is unwilling to take action in this regard,” Sonia Gandhi said. The Congress president’s tough words set the tone of her party’s stand in the all-party meeting. Gandhi also tried to chide the NDA regime by insisting it was recycling many policies and programmes of the UPA regime.