'Central ministers rush to states to topple governments, not to help in floods'

Congress on Monday hit out at the NDA government for its “mishandling” of the flood situation and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ignoring the marooned parts of the north-east.

“Union Ministers only rush to states where they have to engineer political defection, they are not interested in helping people in distress,” Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha told reporters here.

He said neither union Cabinet ministers nor the Prime Minister had visited Assam that has been facing the brunt of floods for the past two months.

Azad smelled a conspiracy in the BJP demand that Congress MLAs were staying away from flood-hit Gujarat and doing injustice to their assembly constituencies.

“Such an atmosphere is being created across the country against the Congress MLAs so that they can come back to Ahmadabad and from the Airport, they can be stolen,” he said referring to six MLAs switching sides to the BJP.

The Congress claims that the BJP has been offering allurement to its legislators and also using coercive means to make them quit their party.

Congress has flown 44 of its MLAs to the safe environs of Bengaluru to prevent any more poaching by the BJP ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in the state. The series of resignations by Congress legislators has put the election of senior leader Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha in jeopardy.

Countering the BJP charge that Congress MLAs in Gujarat were away at resorts in Karnataka when the state was facing floods, Azad said his party workers were already working on the ground helping people in distress.

“Even Central ministers and BJP MPs have not visited their flood-hit regions in Gujarat. The chief minister has also not visited Banaskantha, the worst-hit region,” Azad said.

The Congress also took exception to reference in a section of the media to Ahmed Patel as the political secretary to the Congress president.

“I do not want you to involve the name of Sonia Gandhi every time you talk of Ahmed Patel. He is not contesting as Political Secretary. He is contesting there as Congress candidate.” Azad said.