M A I N   N E W S

Sonia blames Centre for Arunachal episode
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 9
Accusing the BJP of raking up the Ayodhya issue near the elections to cover up its ‘failures’, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today alleged that the NDA government had hatched a conspiracy to destabilise her party’s government in Arunachal Pradesh.

Launching the party's electoral campaign in the capital at a rally organised by the Delhi Congress for ‘remembering August kranti,’ Ms Gandhi said that the BJP had started creating false impressions on the temple issue close to elections. ‘‘They remember Rama close to polls. Perhaps they want to dodge the lord too. I only want to say, hey Rama, please save the country from such followers who are destroying your values.’’

She said that the past four years had added to the difficulties of common man.‘‘ Unemployment has grown and prices have increased. Dalits are facing atrocities, industry is suffering and crime has risen... what can you expect from a government which misuses an institution like the CBI to save its ministers,’’ Ms Gandhi said.

She accused the NDA of hatching a conspiracy to pull down a democratically elected government in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Congress president said that for the first time in the country's parliamentary history, a government had refused to give necessary information and documents pertaining to defence purchases to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). ‘‘You know how defence purchases have been rocked by scams. Bribes have been taken even for purchase of coffins for our brave soldiers,’’ she said.