Modi's inabilty to accept divergent views splintering NDA, says Congress

The Congress on Thursday took potshots at the BJP over the "splintering" of the ruling NDA, saying it was a reflection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's inability to accept divergent views.

"All was never well within the NDA. A parochial autocratic alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi could never accept divergence of opinions or plurality which is the essence of India's foundational values," Randeep Singh Surjewala, in-charge of the AICC's communication department, told reporters here.

He said the present-day BJP was no more a party of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani but an organisation that ran on the diktats of one person.

He said the TDP was one of the founders of the National Democratic Alliance and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had even served as the convenor of the coalition.

"The leader of the TDP party has found himself, his party and his state insulted. Such is the arrogance of the prime minister that he doesn't deem it fit to take a phone call from a chief minister," Surjewala said.

He noted that earlier, BJP's oldest ally - the Shiv Sena - too had declared that it would go it alone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. "The BJD - which was a time-tested ally of the BJP - too dumped them long ago. The JD(U) too had dumped the BJP and remarried for the compulsions of Nitish Kumar," the Congress spokesman said.

"Modi government has little place for those who dissent either from within or from outside and the present disintegration of the NDA is a reflection of that," Surjewala said.