New Delhi: BJP on Sunday ridiculed Rahul Gandhi`s comments that he believed in empowering people and fighting graft, saying his claims sound hollow as he and his mother Sonia Gandhi had even "snatched" away the powers of the Prime Minister while several scams took place during the UPA rule.
Accusing Gandhi of "misleading" the country by saying that the UPA government would increase manufacturing growth when it was set to demit office in a month, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said people are not as foolish as he "thinks" them to be.
Gandhi could not even cross the "nursery level" performance in his interview to a private channel where he made these comments, Prasad said as he used contents of a book written by PM`s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru to take swipe at the Congress Vice-President.
"If you could snatch the rights of your own PM how can you assure the people that you will give rights to the common man? If you could not empower your PM, how could you empower people of India?," he said in a press briefing.
"The same Rahul Gandhi who along with his mother made the PM powerless says he will now give strength to the people of India," he said sarcastically, referring to the content of the book written by Singh`s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru.
By not rebutting the book`s claim that the ruling Congress pressurised PM Manmohan Singh into giving credit to Gandhi for NREGA, Prasad said the Congress leader has only confirmed it.
The BJP leader ridiculed Gandhi`s assertion that he fought against graft by introducing institutional reforms like RTI, saying, "coalgate, 2G scam and railgate all happened during UPA rule despite RTI."
"Let me tell you Rahul Gandhi humbly that people of India are not fools as you think them to be," he said.
Prasad dismissed Gandhi`s criticism of `Gujarat model of growth`, saying all investors get a chance to progress in the Modi-ruled state and not only one or two as alleged by the Congress Vice-President.
Pointing to photographs widely circulated in social media and printed in some news papers showing Gandhi`s brother-in-law Robert Vadra with industrialist Gautam Adani, perceived to be close to Modi, the BJP leader said Gandhi should offer clarification on this.
The BJP leader also expressed concern over the increased Maoist violence during polls, which has claimed 17 lives so far, and asked the Election Commission to reconsider security arrangements in the regions hit by Naxalism.
He said 564 companies of paramilitary forces were deployed in Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh resulting in little violence during elections but only 110 companies were allocated to the state in Lok Sabha polls against the government`s demand of 450 companies.
With elections in parts of the state and other Naxal-hit regions in Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh yet to occur, he said the EC should look into security arrangements as Maoists have begun targeting civilians on poll duty.
He also questioned the "silence" of the "soft faces of Naxal ideology" over the killings who, he alleged, are present in National Advisory Council headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Planning Commission.
