New Delhi, Sept 20: Describing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a “headache” for BJP and NDA, the Congress today claimed that he had reinforced his image of “great intolerance” by enacting the “drama of fast”.
“Modi is a headache for the BJP and the NDA. It does not affect the UPA. We do not see it from that angle. We see the fast undertaken by him as the biggest political hypocrisy of the decade,” AICC General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters.
He said Modi's actions were not surprising as the opposition party was witnessing a “race for supremacy”.
In an obvious dig at BJP veteran L K Advani, Dwivedi said those people who cannot do their politics without support from the Gujarat Chief Minister will have to blow Modi's trumpet.
He said it was strange that a person against whom people have complaints of injustice should undertake such a fast when it is observed by those who suffer injustice.
Referring to the “fissures” in the NDA, Dwivedi, who is the AICC Media Department chief, asked, “Where is NDA if the JD-U and Shiv Sena are not with the fast?”
Suggesting that all is not well in the BJP over Modi's projection, he said, “Ask those in that party who have welcome Modi's fast? How they are feeling inside. “Be it the fast or the Rathyatra, it is all about the politics to gain control of the party.
“Nowadays, everyone in the BJP is trying to establish one's supremacy, RSS is doing it as an organisation while all others are doing it in their personal capacity, be it Advani's Rathyatra or the BJP President Nitin Gadkari's antics.
“If under these circumstances, Modi was playing the drama of fast what is surprising about it? It is just the beginning. Let us see how things take shape by 2014,” when the Parliament elections are scheduled, he said.
Asked whether Congress was ‘comfortable' with Modi's projection as prime ministerial candidate as it would lead to political polarisation on secular and communal lines, Dwivedi said, “Not at all.
“We have always opposed political people like Narendra Modi who do not accept the all inclusive social structure of society. The emergence of such leaders is not a good augury and there is no question of being happy about it,” he said.
Describing Modi's talk of communal amity as a “open fraud with the people,” the Congress leader said that nobody will accept that he can stand against the politics of caste and communalism.
“As far as Modi's politics is concerned, it is BJP's problem. As BJP was helpless in Karnataka, the same holds true for it in Gujarat in some matters,” he said.
He said that one of the causes for undertaking a fast is self-purification, but the Gujarat Chief Minister did not say that he urgently required it.
Party spokesperson Renuka Choudhary said that Modi ended up exposing himself by the fast which revealed that he was “a man of great intolerance and arrogance”.
She said that the way things took shape, “Modi ended up reinforcing the same image of himself that he wanted to shed”. Choudhary claimed that the counter fast undertaken by Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela showed to the people that an alternative was available.
A senior party leader, who did not want to be identified, claimed that Modi had upset Advani's yatra and hurt BJP's plans. PTI
