Sonia, Congress leaders attack Modi over price rise, communal tension

Rae Bareli/New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi on Monday led the Congress attack against Narendra Modi government and flagged the issue of price rise as her party slammed both the Prime Minister and BJP for "rise in communal tension" as NDA completes 100 days in power.

"People will give a reply to whether prices (of essential commodities) have gone down or not," the Congress President told reporters in Rae Bareli, when asked about 100 days of Modi government.

She is on a two-day visit to her Lok Sabha constituency. Accusing the government of "causing rise in communal tension" in its first 100 days in office, Congress leader Manish Tewari in Delhi questioned the "silence" of the Prime Minister and accused it of encouraging organisations fanning it.

Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi spoke of a "consistent hiatus" in the over last 100 days in the "preaching and practice" of the Prime Minister and the government.

"Modi's eloquence and oratory, his using fine words of communal harmony and peace from the ramparts of the Red Fort and then maintaining a complete silence when Ashok Singhal (VHP) chief, Mohan Bhagwat (RSS chief) and Adityanath (BJP Uttar Pradesh chief) and Giriraj Singh (BJP MP from Bihar) do something else," he said.

Attacking the government over the Prime Minister's planned interaction with students on the Teachers' Day, Singhvi said, "Are we allowed to make virtual propaganda? Has the government ever used government machinery to influence impressionable minds with political or partially political agenda?...It's an issue of misuse of state machinery for self-propaganda."

The Congress spokesperson said he does not think that any Prime Minister or President has "by a diktat" said students from class one must stand, sit and listen him. "Thank God, they have spared the students from K G," Singhvi said dismissively.

Modi is to give a pep-talk to about 1,000 selected students at the Manekshaw Auditorium here on September 5, which will be beamed live to over 18 lakh government and private schools in the country through Doordarshan and education channels.