JAIPUR: Hitting out at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi over the alleged snooping on a woman and felicitation of party MLAs post Muzaffarnagar riots, Union minister Salman Khurshid today said Modi is “coward and not in control” of his party affairs.
On the alleged snooping issue, the External Affairs Minister said, “Why security personnel were deployed behind that woman? If he (Modi) has the courage… the woman should be allowed to come out. I want to know who is this woman who wanted security.”
“They (BJP) said her parents asked the government for security for their daughter. I ask can parents ask the government to do surveillance on where their daughter is going, whom she is meeting?” Khurshid said at a press conference here ahead of the December 1 assembly polls.
On the two-member inquiry commission set up by Gujarat government to look into the snooping case, the Congress leader said, “I do not want to comment on judges and commissions. You can check out the background of why these two people have been picked.”
“In the past two months, I have heard speeches of BJP leaders. But they did not say sorry for once for what had happened in Gujarat in 2002… They did not apologies even for what had happened in Muzaffarnagar,” Khurshid said.
Criticizing Modi over felicitation of two BJP MLAs, accused in Muzaffarnagar riots during a rally in Agra, he said, “If he (Modi) had got the courage, he could have gone to the stage with two of the MLAs and felicitated them. If this was wrong and he did not like their felicitation, he should have said it was not right. He is a coward and not in control.”
Drawing an apparent comparison between Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Khurshid said, “You are no leader if you scare or threaten people. If you show only nightmares and you do not have a belief, then you are no leader. India deserves a leader who shows dreams, not nightmare.”
Responding to charges by BJP that the UPA government had lacked vision vis-a-vis India’s foreign policy, Khurshid said, “I think they (BJP) have to understand diplomacy and foreign policy separately, before making comments in public”.
“India’s foreign policy was never weak… other nations are demanding that India be given a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council… Every nation has welcomed India’s foreign policy,” he said.
Referring to China, Khurshid said India might have historical problems with the country, but that would pose no problems for their bilateral relations.
Responding to a query on Congress allegedly asking the minorities to be scared of Modi, Khurshid said, “We never said this… For Congress, there is no difference between the majority and minority communities”.
And, as to following strategies of vote-bank politics, Khurshid said that to seek votes was a valid phenomenon in a democracy but, “Congress loves people from the heart… Where there is a bond of hearts, no vote bank is required”.–PTI
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