The back and forth over “rajdharma” continues as senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Saturday took on Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for slamming the grand old party asking it not to teach the ruler’s duty but look within itself.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday lashed out at the Congress saying the grand old party is incapable of lecturing the BJP on the Delhi riots which have left at least 42 people dead.
Prasad criticised Sonia Gandhi saying that she was trying to teach the government ‘rajdharma’.
“Shreemati Sonia Gandhi please don’t preach us ‘rajdharma’. Your record is full of rapid violations, twists and turns for plane and simple vote bank politics,” he said while addressing the media.
Reacting to the minister’s remarks, Kapil Sibal tweeted: “Law Minister to Congress : “Please don’t preach us Rajdharma” How can we Mr. Minister ? When you did not listen to Vajpayeeji in Gujarat why would you listen to us ! Listening , learning and obeying Rajdharma not one of your Government’s strong points ! (sic)”
The senior Congress leader was referring to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s comments over the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in charge of the state.
The controversy started after interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday after meeting the President Ram Nath Kovind advised that Home Minister Amit Shah should be sacked for “abdicating” his duties and both the Centre and Arvind Kejriwal’s government in Delhi had been “mute spectators” to the communal clashes.
“Rashtrapati ji you are given the highest possible responsibility under the Constitution of India: to act as the conscience keeper of this Government and to remind it of its Constitutional duty and the pillars of Raj Dharma, by which any just government must abide,” the Congress said in its memorandum.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) had met on Wednesday and after deliberations for more than two hours, Gandhi demanded that the Home Minister should resign following his “colossal failure” in controlling the violence in Northeast Delhi.
Alleging the violence as a “planned incident”, Gandhi claimed that there is a “conspiracy behind the violence which the country witnessed during the Delhi elections as well”.