New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi's statement 'RSS PM lies to Bharat Mata' accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of lying to the public about detention centres seems to have hit a nerve of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The party has been trying hard to make a strong comeback against the Congress leader with similar diatribes ever since. After calling Gandhi, 'Joothon Ka Sardar' on Thursday, the BJP gave him yet another title 'liar of the year' to even scores.
The BJP on Friday slammed Rahul Gandhi for his claim that the National Population Register is a "tax" on the poor and said he is the "liar of the year" for his comments which have "embarrassed" people and his Congress party.
Senior BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar accused the Congress of trying to fan instability in the country but asserted that people are with the government on the new citizenship law and NPR.
The NPR does not involve any monetary transaction and its data is used to identify the poor so that government welfare schemes could reach the targeted people, he said.
A similar exercise was undertaken in 2010 as well, he said.
"When Rahul Gandhi was Congress president, he would say anything and speak lies all the time. Now he is no longer president but continues to speak lies. If there were a category of the liar of the year, he would be its recipient. His comments used to embarrass his family. His lies now embarrass his party and entire country," Javadekar told reporters.
Personal attack, a way to evade tough queries: Congress
Meanwhile, the Congress on Friday hit back at the BJP for calling Rahul Gandhi "liar of the year", saying the ruling party resorts to abuse and personal attacks when it has no answers to his "tough questions" on issues such as the state of the economy and women's security.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera also alleged that there was "star wars" in the top leadership of the BJP with one saying something in Parliament and the other saying something else at Ramlila Maidan, an apparent reference to Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments at a rally here.
"Rahul Gandhi from every platform asks tough questions. The government of the day is either too arrogant to respond to these questions which the people want answers to or the government has no answers to cover their failures. They hide behind abuse, very low, very petty level of narrative, to make it a personal attack," he told reporters.
Likening the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with demonetisation, former Congress president Gandhi said in Chhattisgarh that these exercises are "tax" on the poor, who will suffer the same way they did after the note ban in November 2016.
Khera said the Congress has a responsibility as an opposition party to voice the concerns and articulate the questions of unemployed youths of this country with unemployment touching a 45-year-old low.
The party has a responsibility to voice the concerns of all those victims of bad economic policies, of the victims of demonetisation and a flawed GST, of small traders, of the women who do not feel safe at all in this country, he said.
"The Congress will continue to ask these uncomfortable questions -- why is the youth unemployed, why did you mess up the economy, why are the women of India unsafe. Rahul Gandhi has taught us not to be scared," Khera said.
(With inputs from PTI.)
