New Delhi: Opposition today debunked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's contention that a conspiracy to destabilise the government and "defame" him was being launched and said it was a counter offensive to ward off the imminent attack on NDA in the budget session.
"This was a counter offensive so that we do not go on the offensive. It is not that we are on the defensive. We submit to the Prime Minister that please rein in your party leaders," Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.
He said that there has not been a single instance of any action being taken against anyone of the ruling party, who had made controversial remarks.
"The government and the ruling party should own up," he said frowning upon the debate started about nationalism after the JNU row.
Accusing the Prime Minister of failing to take any action against such people, he cited an instance of Rajiv Gandhi sacking a party general secretary in 1988-89 when he had made a remark on the Ayodhya issue, which was at variance with the party line.
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"BJP leaders shoot off their mouth but no action is taken against them," Azad said.
CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury accused the government of bringing an "atmosphere of anarchy" in the country, in an apparent reference to the way the BJP and its allied government handled the Jat reservation in Haryana, the Patel quota row in Gujarat and Kapus' agitation in Andhra Pradesh.
Addressing a farmer's rally in Bargarh in Odisha, Modi had yesterday said that disgruntled NGOs and black-marketeers were conspiring to destabilise his government and "defame" him and asserted that he will not bow to any machinations. He said some people were not able to digest the fact that a "chai wala" (tea seller) has become the Prime Minister and hence were conspiring all the time to bring him down.
"You would have seen in the recent past, there is attack on me all the time. Some people are continuously at it. They are not able to digest how Modi became the Prime Minister, how a 'chai wala' became the Prime Minister, they cannot swallow it," he had said.
