Congress has siege mentality: BJP

New Delhi: In a sharp reaction to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's charges against it, BJP on Sunday said the ruling party was suffering from a "siege mentality" and hence using "abusive" language against the opposition to deflect attention from its failures.

"The Congress Party is suffering from a mentality of a party under siege. Sonia Gandhi's speech sounds like the reaction of a party under siege. Instead of answering calls from the people on core issues, we see her replicating the Congress conduct when they were under attack for the Bofors scandal," BJP President Nitin Gadkari said in a statement.

The principal opposition alleged that Congress had indulged in "pretended aggression" to deflect attention from its failures in checking corruption, non-performance of the government by UPA-II, "alienation" of the Congress from the people and "mistrust" among its allies.

"By using abusive language, Gandhi has attempted to deflect attention from failures of UPA-II. We shall definitely raise these questions on the public fora and make sure the Congress will answer," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman

said.

BJP also defended the stalemate in Parliament over 2G Spectrum scam and rebutted Gandhi's charge that the BJP had resorted to political blackmail.

"Pranab Mukherjee has also chosen to say in a resolution that the principal opposition party has led the Parliament towards almost a subversion of the Constitution. These are not the ways in which the ruling party is expected to come with its answers to the people," Sitharaman said.

The BJP also targeted Congress General Secretary Digivijay Singh for his comments on Hindu terror.

"Today we see that Digvijay Singh was speaking about things which till yesterday the Congress party wanted to distance itself from. Today Congress party has given an official forum for such talks," the spokesperson said.

She insisted that Singh should not be taken seriously as he had failed to prove his contentions about his talks with slain ATS Chief Hemant Karkare.

The BJP alleged that Congress allegations of a "conspiracy against secularism" were not substantiated.

"I wonder where the conspiracy is happening. They are still not sure on what their position is on secularism... What is their stand on secularism? Gandhi has spoken about minority and majority fundamentalism. I have a feeling that

Congress is having a churning on what constitutes terror in their definition," Sitharaman said.

Sitharaman charged that Gandhi has spoken as if she was the Leader of Opposition and forgotten that she is president of the ruling party.

"The Congress party should introspect during their scheduled brainstorming sessions on how it has missed out, yet another opportunity, to answer the people on the core issues which are posing a challenge today," Gadkari said.

Asked about charges of corruption against the BJP government in Karnataka, Sitharaman said the party was waiting for the report of its in-house inquiry.

"Congress will never have a moral high ground on corruption. The party had allowed Ottavio Quattrochchi (Bofors kickbacks accused) and William Anderson (Union Carbide Chief) to get away, Sitharaman said.