Congress cannot be Pandavas Rhetoric of a loser: BJP 

New Delhi: Defence Minister and senor BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday countered Rahul Gandhi's attack on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Congress plenary session, calling it was "rhetoric of loser, devoid of substance".  

On Rahul Gandhi calling the BJP "Kauravas" and Congress "Pandavas", she said the Congress party which imposed emergency, oversaw anti-Sikh riots and presided over a corrupt regime does not deserve to call itself "Pandavas" who always stood for the truth. She said the Congress president who keeps saying that he visits Mandirs and Masjids never spares an opportunity to mock Hindu rituals.  

On Rahul Gandhi saying that BJP has accepted a murderer as its president, she said the courts have cleared Amit Shah of all charges and it is Rahul Gandhi who is out on bail in the National Herald fraud case. Sitharaman went on to say that Rahul Gandhi only eulogises the contribution of one family in the independence of India and undermines the contribution of others like Vir Savarkar.    

"If you don't appreciate his contribution, at least don't belittle someone who spent time in the Andaman jail during freedom struggle," Sitharaman said. She picked holes in Rahul Gandhi's claim that the BJP is losing election after election saying that the Congress party could not save its security deposit in the recently held by-elections in Uttar Pradesh. 

On Rahul Gandhi's remarks on the recent crisis in judiciary, she said that the Congress has no right in targeting the BJP over judiciary as people know how Indira Gandhi treated the judiciary after the Allahabad High Court convicted her of electoral malpractices and debarred her from holding any elected post. 

She also mentioned Rajiv Gandhi's move to introduce the press defamation bill and how during that phase hundreds of cases were filed against journalists. Commenting on farmers woes, she said the Congress has no concrete plans to address the crisis. They only bring it up as a poll plank and try to gain political mileage from it.