BJP sowing seeds of poison, says Sonia

In a stinging attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday accused them of indulging in divisive politics by “sowing seeds of poison” and instigating violence to satiate their “hunger” for power.

Sonia exhorted people of the State to be cautious about the BJP for its corruption and communalism and evaluate the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre on the basis of its performance in the last 10 years.

“You had a BJP government in Karnataka. You know how corrupt it was. I need not say anything about it. Its communal designs are also well known to all. I want you to be wary of the BJP,’’ she told a mammoth gathering at the Nutan Vidyalaya Grounds here.

She was addressing a public meeting after inaugurating ESIC Medical College, buildings of the hospital, dental college and nursing college, constructed at a cost of Rs 893 crore.

 Stating that Gulbarga was the land of Sufis and saints, Gandhi said people of the region would not allow “elements set to sow the seeds of poison” to achieve their sinister designs.

“It was due to the most corrupt BJP regime in the State that pro-people programmes and schemes of the Centre could not reach the masses. But now, the Congress government has taken over and it has been doing well and central schemes are reaching the people,’’ Sonia said.

Stating that the Congress was committed to fighting corruption, she said enactment of the Right to Information Act and the Jan Lokpal Bill were testimonies to the party’s commitment.

Reading from a written text, the Congress supremo, who spoke in Hindi, reminded the people of the Hyderabad-Karnataka (H-K) region that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in 2002 had outrightly rejected their demand.