New Delhi, Jun 25: BJP leader L K Advani today hit out at Digvijay Singh for his comments that Rahul Gandhi should become Prime Minister and wondered whether any Congress leader would have continued in his post if he had made such comments against party nominees like I K Gujral or Deve Gowda.
In his latest blog posting, Advani said the implication of Digvijay's statement is that the present incumbent of the Prime Minister's chair must yield place to the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
“I wonder if in any other democracy the General Secretary of the ruling party would dare make a public statement of this kind. In a Communist country, the First Secretary of the Communist Party may have the authority to say so, but he too may consider it indiscreet,” Advani said.
The BJP Parliamentary Party chief maintained that other than Manmohan Singh, there have been Prime Ministers in the past who were nominated to the post by the Congress but still no party member would have made such comments against them.
“Indeed, every one knows that like Dr Manmohan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda, I K Gujral were all nominees of the Congress Party. But when they were Prime Ministers, would any Congress General Secretary have dared make a similar statement? And if any such statement had been made, would they have continued in office?” Advani asked.
Singh had last week said it is high time Rahul Gandhi became Prime Minister, but later said Manmohan Singh is a “fairly good Prime Minister”.
“He has clumsily tried to retract his earlier irresponsible statement first by praising Manmohan Singh and then by affirming glibly ‘I will be happy to see Rahul as a PM in my lifetime',” Advani said. PTI
