BJP's fires 5 posers at Congress using Baru's book as ammounition - Times of India

NEW DELHI: Midway through the Lok Sabha elections, BJP on Saturday hit out hard at top Congress leadership - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi - drawing ammunition from former media advisor to PM Sanjaya Baru's book. In the book, Baru claims Sonia called the shots though Manmohan was at the head of the government.

Posing five questions that BJP said Baru's book (Accidental Prime Minister) has raised, party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman has sought answers from the Congress leadership.

The questions are directed at PM Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, on whether cabinet files were shared with the UPA chief, who was not a member of the cabinet and if Singh forefeited his prerogative to decide his cabinet as per the disclosures in the book.

Sitharaman questioned Sonia if cabinet files were shared with her as mentioned in the book and if she discussed the details of a deal on Siachen with then army chief J J Singh.

"Did the PM refuse to take daily briefings from intelligence agencies and did this not have a bearing on our security situation?" the BJP spokesperson asked.

"Did the PM forefeit his prerogative to decide on who would be in his cabinet? Was the '2G fame' A Raja appointed at the behest of Sonia Gandhi? Did the PM knowingly overlook corruption by his colleagues as alleged in the book. Did 2G, CWG and Coalgate happened because of this?" she asked.

"BJP draws the attention of Congress party to introspect on these issues. They need to answer to the people on their failures in the past decades. The questions raised relate to failure to control prices, provide jobs, manage the economy. A constructive and issue-based political discourse is the need of the hou," she said.