PM, Manmohan come face-to-face days after bitter war of words

After an acrimonious face-off on the Gujarat campaign trail, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his predecessor Manmohan Singh came face-to-face at a ceremony to honour martyrs of the 2001 Parliament attack.

As he got down from his vehicle, Modi greeted Singh with folded hands and extended it towards the former prime minister. Modi held Singh's folded hands for a brief while at the sombre ceremony on Wednesday.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi who was standing a little away from Singh also greeted the prime minister with folded hands.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, senior BJP  leader L K Advani, Union Ministers Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ananth Kumar, Smriti Irani, Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Rajiv Shukla were also present on the occasion.

On the Gujarat campaign trail, Modi  claimed  that a "secret meeting" between Congress leaders and Pakistani representatives had taken place at the residence of suspended party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.

In an unusually strong statement, Singh had termed Modi's claims "falsehoods and innuendoes" and demanded an apology.