Kolar: BJP president Amit Shah on Monday attacked Rahul Gandhi over his meeting with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, saying it highlighted Congress party's double standards.
Addressing a rally in Kolar in poll-bound Karnataka, Shah recalled that Rahul had publicly torn an ordinance that the then UPA government had brought in 2013 to 'save' Lalu Prasad, a Congress ally, but now his meeting with the Bihar leader showed that he was a supporter of corruption.
Rahul Gandhi tore off the ordinance brought by Manmohan Singh to save Lalu Yadav when in power but now goes to meet the convicted leader in fodder scam to take his support for 2019 elections. This dual face of Rahul Gandhi is exposed. pic.twitter.com/0tMYC4w5gO
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) April 30, 2018
The Congress chief on Monday went to AIIMS, Delhi to meet Lalu, who is convicted in fodder scam cases, before he was discharged. The RJD leader was undergoing treatment at the premier hospital for a host of ailments for nearly a month.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi met RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav at AIIMS in Delhi. pic.twitter.com/glpkGIX5tn
— ANI (@ANI) April 30, 2018
Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi met RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav at All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Lalu Prasad Yadav is undergoing treatment for various ailments related to heart and kidney. pic.twitter.com/qc0NCvxu5m
— ANI (@ANI) April 30, 2018
"Now 2019 (Lok Sabha) elections are approaching. The Congress is afraid that it cannot win without Lalu Prasad's support. He has been convicted in the fodder scam. The same Rahul Gandhi who had torn the ordinance goes to meet him and hugs him so that they could form a government. This has highlighted to people two faces of Rahul Gandhi," Shah said.
"Rahul has one set of standards when in power and now to get power he does not shy away from hugging Lalu Prasad. A party with such double standards cannot give a clean government in Karnataka. When the president of a party is a supporter of corruption, then this is how its government is run," he added, attacking the Siddaramaiah government in the state.
In a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet Colleagues in 2013, Rahul, who was the then Congress vice president, had chosen to publicly castigate the UPA government for issuing an ordinance to negate the Supreme Court order on disqualifying convicted MPs and MLAs, terming it as "complete nonsense" that should be "torn and thrown out".
(With PTI and ANI inputs)