MS ACCUSES MODI OF FALSEHOOD
Asks him to show maturity and apologise to the nation
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday sought an apology to the nation from Prime Minister Modi for his "innuendos and falsehoods." The reference was to the prime minister’s politically loaded remark that Manmohan Singh and others had discussed the Gujarat elections with Pakistani dignitaries at a dinner hosted by former Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar on December 6. Contained in these remarks was the veiled suggestion that the Congress was colluding with the neighbouring country.
Modi had also claimed that Aiyar made the "neech" (lowly) remark a day after this dinner and that the gathering discussed how to install Ahmed Patel, a Muslim, as the Gujarat chief minister. He further accused Pakistan of interfering in the elections. The Congress has already suspended Aiyar and served a show-cause notice on him for expulsion from the party.
Taking umbrage at the thought process, Dr Manmohan Singh asked the PM to "show the maturity and gravitas expected of the high office he holds instead of concentrating his energies on scoring erroneously conceived brownie points."
In a statement issued here, he said: "I did not discuss Gujarat elections with anyone else at the dinner hosted by Mani Shankar Aiyar as alleged by Modi. Nor was the Gujarat issue raised by anyone else present at the dinner. The discussion was confined to India-Pakistan relations."
He also released names of all 18 persons present at the dinner, including distinguished public servants and journalists, asserting that "none of them could be accused of indulging in any anti-national activities. "My track record of public service to the country over the last five decades is known to everyone. No one, including Modi, can lamely question it to gain lost political ground," he said, slamming Modi for "setting a dangerous precedent by his insatiable desire to tarnish every constitutional office, including that of a former Prime Minister and a former Army chief."
Asserting that the Congress needs no sermons on "nationalism" from the BJP or the prime minister "whose compromised track record on fighting terrorism is well known," Dr Manmohan Singh reminded Modi that "he had gone to Pakistan uninvited after the terrorist attacks in Udhampur and Gurdaspur."
"Let him also tell the country the reason for inviting the infamous ISI of Pakistan to our strategic airbase in Pathankot to investigate a terror attack that emanated from Pakistan," he said.
Only two Pakistanis -- former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri and Pakistan's High Commissioner to India -- were present in the discussion held at Aiyar''s residence on India, Pakistan relations, followed by dinner.
The list of the attendees as released by Dr Manmohan Singh shows himself, former vice-president Hamid Ansari, Mani Shankar Aiyar and his wife, former foreign minister K Natwar Singh, former Army chief Deepak Kapoor, former diplomats Salman Haider, Chimaya Gharekhan, Satish Lambah, M K Bhadrakumar, TCA Raghavan, Sharad Sabharwal, and K Shankar Bajpai (the last three served as Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan), veteran journalists Prem Shankar Jha and Rahul Khushwant Singh and defence writer Ajai Shukla.