Manmohan: Personal attack

New Delhi, July 26: So long he was a “weak” Prime Minister. Now the Sangh parivar has added another epithet — corrupt.

With the defeat at Tuesday’s trust vote still rankling, the BJP and the RSS have begun targeting Manmohan Singh’s personal integrity, in an abrupt departure from the past when they labelled him weak but never questioned his honesty.

The BJP today showed Manmohan sitting on a bundle of currency notes while announcing its bhandaphor (expose corruption) rallies from tomorrow.

Party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the government had not only institutionalised “corruption and immorality” but had also created anarchic conditions in the corridors of power by brazen use of black money to purchase MPs.

“The power brokers have invested Rs 600 crore and now they have begun to recover the amount with interest,” Naqvi said without giving any evidence to back his allegations.

He said all senior BJP leaders, including L.K. Advani and party chief Rajnath Singh, would participate in the rallies in different states to tell people how Manmohan was sitting on a “seat of black money”.

He didn’t name Congress chief Sonia Gandhi or any other UPA leader, clearly indicating that the mission was to tarnish the Prime Minister’s personal image.

The latest issue of RSS mouthpiece Organiser confirms the agenda. In a blistering attack on Manmohan, its editorial says “no other” Prime Minister has “stooped” so low.

“What a shame that we are all shamed but he has no such feelings. He is rather proud and grateful to his mentor for delivering him this day and thanked his friends who made it possible. What a fall!” it says.

The Organiser doesn’t stop at that. “How did the image-conscious Prime Minister manage 24 members from different parties to change their loyalty?” it says.

“His admirers will claim that it was not he but the dirty work was carried out by Sonia Gandhi, Amar Singh and Ahmed Patel. How many will believe this? It is the murkiness of market that he has brought into the hallowed portals of democracy.”

The Sangh mouthpiece says there was nothing in the Indo-US nuclear deal that warranted such daylight murder of democracy.

“Was the duplicitous villainy worth it?” the editorial asks. “Dr Singh proved that he is a small minded, scornful, vindictive person and he resorted to deplorable levels in personally targeting the Leader of Opposition and the CPM leadership.”

Ironically, it is Advani who has been attacking the Prime Minister for nearly four years now while the CPM began targeting him after Manmohan challenged them to topple his government last year.

The editorial makes no mention of the attempts to lure away members from the ruling combine.