11 May,2009 07:58 AM IST | | Agencies
Blames ruling UPA government of playing votebank politics
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi yesterday charged Congress with playing votebank politics over the issue
of hanging Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and took a dig at the UPA government for its stand on Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochi.
Modi ridiculed the Congress-led regime saying, "In Congress rule, one has to be in queue for everything right from getting ration, essential commodities, and employment.
"Congress has become so used to queues, that it says even Afzal Guru's file is in queue. Have you ever heard that somebody has to be in queue even for capital punishment?"
Countering Rahul Gandhi, who had made overtures to woo Sikhs during his rally yesterday, Modi asked why the Congress government, which had taken "just 15 minutes" to decide on the death sentence of a youth of the community who was convicted for killing then Army chief General Vaidya in the 1980s, has "delayed" the hanging of Afzal Guru. "The Sikh youth's family had submitted a mercy petition after he was awarded death sentence by the Supreme Court, but your (Rahul) family's government took just 15 minutes to decide in the Cabinet to hang him and 24 hours later he was hanged. But in case of Afzal Guru, his hanging is being delayed because of the votebank politics," Modi alleged.
