Manmohan lashes out at BJP

A war of words erupted between the Congress and the BJP over the special CBI court’s verdict in the 2G spectrum case with the former claiming to be a victim of conspiracy and the ruling party insisting the judgement is “no badge of honour”.

The Congress also demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley for the BJP’s alleged “propaganda and lies”.

The Congress fielded its top guns to take on the BJP and other political adversaries who had used the scam to paint the thenUPA regime as corrupt. The scam had sullied the image of the UPA government and is seen as one reason for its loss in the 2014 polls.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the judgement needs to be respected as it has “pronounced that the massive propaganda” unleashed against his government was without any foundation. “We respect the court’s judgement. I do not want to boast (about) anything….the verdict speaks for itself,” he said.

Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said truth has prevailed. “It has been proved now that the BJP speaks lies and propaganda to win elections,” he alleged.

The BJP remained unfazed. Finance minister Jaitley, who spearheaded the BJP’s campaign inside Parliament, said the “zeroloss theory” of the Congress was demolished when the Supreme Court in February 2012 quashed the spectrum allocation done under the UPA government.

“The Congress is treating 2G verdict as a badge of honour,” he said. A senior union minister said the “relief is a char din ki chandani (short term reprieve)” for the UPA that will be gone once an appeal is filed in a higher court.

Former telecom minister Kapil Sibal, whose zero-loss remarks on the 2G spectrum allocation had drawn flak, however said the UPA stood vindicated by the court verdict.

NEWDELHI: