Sushilkumar Shinde has a life beyond Patna: Salman Khurshid

NEW DELHI: Dismissing BJP criticism on the Union Home Minister attending a Bollywood music launch hours after serial blasts in Patna, Congress leader Salman Khurshid has said Sushilkumar Shinde "has a life beyond Patna".

Khurshid also criticised BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for going ahead with the Patna rally despite the blasts, saying "after an event like this happens, you should give up whatever happens".

Defending Shinde for attending the music release of a film just hours after the blast, the External Affairs Minister said, "Shinde has a life beyond Patna....and the awful thing that happened."

"The law and order was the responsibility of the state government and if the state government was to ask Shinde or the Home Ministry to take over something, he would be there on the phone," he said.

Criticising Modi for going ahead with the rally, the External Affairs Minister said, "May I ask was the rally suspended? You criticised Shinde for carrying on with life as usual but nobody has asked questions that nothing happened to Modi, he went on with his speech, not a word about the people who died, because it was not in the script or was it in the script that we had not seen?"

The Union Minister slammed Modi, saying that instead of attending to those injured in the blasts he went ahead with the rally.

"Should you not attend to people who were hurt? Should you not try to find out what has happened? He continued with his speech ....much worse....much worse," he said.

The union minister also took on Modi for criticising the Congress party on the issue of dynasty politics. Referring to Maneka and Varun Gandhi, he said the (Gandhi) family that irks Modi so much are also a part of BJP.

"There is a very eminent leader in BJP Mrs Maneka Gandhi and Mr Varun Gandhi, a young and bright general secretary of the party. For him (Modi), if you leave Congress, then you are not a part of the family but if you are in Congress, then your are a part of the (Gandhi) family."