In the news for wrong reasons over his controversial remarks questioning Congress party on the Afzal Guru issue, BJP President Nitin Gadkari on Monday found his comments being virtually disapproved by a senior leader of his party while Congress stepped up the attack on him.
"Even strong criticism can be said in appropriate words," former BJP President and former Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi told reporters in Varanasi on Sunday night. Joshi initially tried to skirt the issue but made his comments when reporters were insistent on knowing his views.
Congress leader and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee also adopted a similar line when he said decency was expected in comments by political leaders. "While making comments on an issue, political leaders should maintain decency," he told reporters in Berhampore in West Bengal without taking the name of Gadkari.
But his party leader Digvijay Singh was unsparing in his attack on Gadkari and hit out at him. Singh, who was himself Gadkari's target recently when he asked him whether he was a son of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb or Hindu king Prithviraj Chauhan, asked the BJP President to specify his relationship with Ram Jethmalani who had defended Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
"Jethmalani who had defended Afzal Guru became a BJP MP thanks to Nitin Gadkari. I will ask him to spell out his relationship with the veteran jurist," Singh, who is an AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh, told reporters here.
On Gadkari's refusal to apologise for his remarks that Afzal Guru was like a son-in-law for the Congress, he said he did not want to give any importance to someone making such "non-serious" comments.
Defending his remarks, Gadkari said in Kolkata yesterday that there was no question of his tendering an apology over the issue.
Singh, in-charge of Congress affairs in Uttar Pradesh, also asked the BJP to explain its ties with the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
"Advani was at the helm for six years but he did not hang the killers of Rajiv Gandhi. Will the party explain its relationship with them?" he asked. PTI
