Sonia targets Advani, says Atal didn't trust him

New Delhi: The relationship between the Congress and the BJP shows no signs of improvement. The further deterioration was evident after Congress President Sonia Gandhi delivered a new salvo at the Opposition on Thursday.

This time, the leader under fire was BJP's prime ministerial candidate, L K Advani.

Sonia Gandhi questioned Advani's statement that he was not not aware of the decision to send his cabinet colleague — the then external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh — on the plane with dreaded terrorists to Kandahar.

She said she wondered whether Advani was not trusted by the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on the issue.

"Now the then home minister (L K Advani) of NDA says he was not aware of that Jaswant Singh would accompany terrorists. If he was not aware of it, why did this happen?" she questioned.

"What are we to understand? That the NDA Prime Minister did not not trust him. Why so?," she asked at a public meeting in Rajasthan's Dungarpur district. Sonia Gandhi was in the area for a short visit to the pilgrim centre for tribals.

The latest attack came after Sonia Gandhi picked up on the contradictory statements from the NDA camp on the issue.

She was referring to former defence minister George Fernandes' statement that Advani was in the know of the Kandahar decision.

Speaking exclusively to CNN-IBN last week, Fernandes had stated that Advani was party to the decision of Jaswant Singh accompanying the terrorists and that "Advani might be mistaken in his recollection when he says he was not consulted and didn't know".

Sonia Gandhi also wanted to know why Jaswant Singh was not breaking his silence on the issue.

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"Who is speaking the truth and who is not? Why are they hiding the truth?," she demanded to know.

Further attacking the BJP, the UPA Chairperson said BJP talked about nationalism and terrorism but did not not anything about it.

"I want to know which party pandered to terrorists and sent them away to Afghanistan. It was not the UPA but the BJP. Releasing terrorists in Kandahar was a major incident related to nation's security. I wonder with what face the BJP is making allegations on us against spreading of terrorism," she stated.

BJP Spokesperson, Ravi Shankar Prasad has reacted to Sonia Gandhi's statement saying, "L K Advani has explained everything in his book. She should read book first, before saying anything."

Breaking The Ice

Advani had taken the initiative of breaking the ice between the twwo parties by visiting 10 Janpath to greet Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Holi.

He also presented Sonia Gandhi with a copy of his book, My Country My Life. Sonia Gandhi had not attended the book release function despite an invitation from Advani.

Relations between the Opposition and the UPA have been strained recently with the NDA accusing the Government of not consulting it on major policy decisions, including the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Equally, the NDA has been under frequent attack from both Sonia and the PM for not allowing Parliament to function.

This is for the first time in several years that Advani has met Gandhi at her residence. Earlier, several Central and State Congress leaders gathered at Gandhi's residence to extend their wishes to the party president.

Earlier speaking to CNN-IBN’s Editor in Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, Advani had admitted that relations between the NDA and UPA have hit a new low and he was disturbed by the way basic political courtesies were disappearing.