Thiruvananthapuram: A day after hitting hard at Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over the Lalit Modi issue, BJP today accused Congress of making 'baseless accusations for personal political gains' and 'running away' from debate in Parliament.
Congress was not ready to take up challenge but making baseless allegations for 'personal political gain', Union HRD Minister, Smriti Irani told reporters at the airport here.
Irani was replying to a query on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi seeking to know how much money was received by Sushma Swaraj's family from former IPL chief Lalit Modi.
"I think it is extremely unfortunate that baseless accusations are being made for personal political gains. I am of the opinion that if there is any issue with regard to debate, they should come to Lok Sabha and debate," she said.
"Sushmaji has thrown an open challenge publicly to come to Parliament with any one paper to prove her wrong. That challenge cannot be taken up by
Congress Party and that is why they are running away from a debate in Parliament," she
said.
It was the responsibility of every parliamentarian to ensure that his or her presence reflects the voice of people. "That's why the people elect them as a member of parliament," Irani added.
Earlier, addressing a function here, the Minister claimed the BJP-led NDA government had implemented, within a year of its coming to power, several promises which Congress failed to fulfil in 60 years of its rule.
Citing the announcement of an IIT for Kerala in NDA government's first budget itself and its launch last week, she said "IIT for Kerala was a promise Congress had made but it was never fulfilled."
Irani took a dig at former Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development and local MP, Shashi Tharoor, saying "what the Congress HRD Minister did not do for the state, BJP had fulfilled within a year."
Another major achievement of NDA was the passing of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) legislation which was pending in Parliament during the previous UPA rule, Irani said.
She also claimed her ministry had achieved good progress in the target of setting up separate toilets for girls and boys in government schools in the country.
