The Congress Party demanded Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to apologise to the country for using Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir’s claims about Nawaz Sharif’s alleged utterances about Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh as a political tool to show the country’s leader in poor light before the people, while he is abroad. “Today, we ask Narendra Modi, who makes tall claims about being a nationalist for turning anti-national by believing a Pakistani journalist and showing the Prime Minister in poor light,” Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken said. “It is a matter of great sadness that when the Prime Minister of the country is abroad, at that time, Modi shows the Prime Minister in extremely poor light,” Maken added.
Continuing on his onslaught on Modi, Maken said that it was unfortunate that the Gujarat Chief Minister went ahead and made the allegations public within the country without verifying the facts of the source, and added that the Pakistani journalist in question did not have a credible voice in the media. “Narendra Modi has quoted a Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir, who has alleged that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was called a ‘dihaati aurat’ by Nawaz Sharif. It is appalling that Narendra Modi, who calls himself a nationalist, does not believe Indian journalists like Barkha Dutt who are present there.
Moreover, he did not even crosscheck the facts with the Indian journalists who are present there and will tell you that it was untrue, and instead he believes a Pakistani journalist just to disrespect the Prime Minister within the country,” Maken said. “Additionally, to believe a Pakistani reporter like Hamir Mir who is not credible, whose reports during the Kargil war were found to be unauthentic. …Will Modi retract his statement if the Pakistani journalist, tomorrow, retracts says what he has said was untrue?” Maken asked. “When the televisions were focused on Modi, he put forth a Pakistani journalist’s point of view before the entire country. This is completely anti-national, and how much ever one condemns the incident—it will fall short,” Maken said. Maken also used the opportunity to slam Modi for the large amounts of money spent on his rallies, and demanded him to reveal the source of the party’s income for the expenditure for his campaign. “The kind of money, which was spent on today’s rally—with big giant screens and helicopter entries—Mr. Modi, we want to know where the money is coming from. Are people from outside funding you? This is not the Rs. 5 ticket money.
We want to know what the source of this money is,” he said. Earlier in the day, Modi addressed a massive rally in the national capital—his first as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections—and said the country was burdened by “governments within governments”, as the sanctity of the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had been hit, after Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi deemed an ordinance passed by the Cabinet as ‘nonsense’ earlier this week. “The pride of the Prime Minister has been brought down by his own party. Congress party Vice President has committed the sin of disrespecting the Prime Minister,” Modi said. “The dynasty is strangling democracy,” Modi added. Massive arrangements had been put in place for the Gujarat Chief Minister”s first rally in the national capital. 3,000 policemen and paramilitary personnel were deployed at the rally venue-Japanese Park, Rohini. Special buses were also arranged to bring in students and supporters from far-flung areas of Delhi. The Delhi Metro ran extra trains and feeder buses anticipating a huge rush. (ANI)