Vajpayee had already appealed to Gujarat voters: BJP

Dec 13, 2007, 16:04 GMT

New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS) Embarrassed over reports of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee making an appeal only to Himchal Pradesh voters, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday clarified that the veteran leader had given a similar call to the people of Gujarat.

After Vajpayee this week urged the people of Himachal Pradesh to vote for the BJP, the Congress said that even he had refrained from doing so for Gujarat and thus had conceded defeat there.

But the BJP maintained that Vajpayee's appeal to the people of Gujarat was not issued in the form of a press release as it had come out in newspaper advertisements.

'I would request my spokesperson friends from the Congress party to do their homework well. They are saying that Vajpayee had not released any appeal (to the people of Gujarat) though it has already been released,' BJP spokesperson Ravishanker Prasad said here.

When asked why that appeal was not given to the press, Prasad said it was an advertisement and was printed in all prominent newspapers of Gujarat.

He, however, failed to give any convincing reply to the query why the appeal came after polling for the first phase was over Tuesday.

Taking a dig at the prime minister, Prasad said, 'It is now three and a half years since Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India, but he essentially remains a non-political person whose political comments boomerang on the Congress party.'

He mentioned Manmohan Singh's comment that L.K. Advani was named the BJP's prime ministerial candidate as the party was afraid of Gujarat Chief Minister Modi, and said such statements were 'uncalled for'.

Prasad said Manmohan Singh's latest declaration 'to reopen Gujarat riots cases shows double standards and political hypocrisy at its worst'.

He added, 'We need to remind him that the prosecuting agencies like the CBI (central Bureau of Investigation) are trying to save the accused of the 1984 anti-Sikh massacres, including (Congress leader Jagdish) Tytler.'

On the sixth anniversary of the parliament attack, Prasad said, 'The BJP would like to ask the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) how long it will take to hang (convict) Afzal Guru. The Supreme Court's order in the case came a year ago. His appeal and the curative petition were rejected long ago.'

He said that the Congress-lead UPA government was delaying the capital punishment to Afzal due to elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service