Taking a swipe at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of authorising ‘buying off’ of MLAs and disrespecting institutions, Union minister Prakash Javadekar today said it was like “Satan reading the Bible.”

“Modiji, who rose from poverty to become Prime Minister, this, they (Congress leaders,including Gandhi) are not able to digest and hence should the Congress level such baseless allegations? It is like Satan reading the Bible.”

“This is coming from a family member whose whole family has been doing nothing but corruption,”he told reporters here.

Gandhi made these remarks at a press conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi soon after B S Yeddyurappa announced his resignation as Karnataka Chief Minister in the assembly, not facing the floor test.

Gandhi had attacked Modi, saying “he is corruption” as he authorised “buying” of MLAs and hoped the BJP-RSS learns a lesson from Karnataka.

Javadekar termed as “laughable”, Gandhi’s remark that the collapse of the three-day old BJP government was Congress’ victory.

In fact, BJP has comprehensively defeated Congress in the elections, which is reflected in former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and 14 ministers losing from their respective constituencies, he said.

Javadekar also said Congress was reduced to 78 seats from 122 in the previous election and hence “it is a defeat of the grand old party.”

BJP, on the other hand, increased its tally from 40 to 104 seats and people know it is BJP’s victory, he added.

Fallacious charges

Javadekar also hit out at Gandhi for levelling “fallacious” charges that BJP leaders had tried to “poach” Congress MLAs, by releasing fake audio and video clips in the media.

“The audio clips and videos are fake and allegations of Rahul Gandhiji that we were wooing their MLAs is ‘thukar bhaghna’ (spit and run) case,” he added.

Opportunistic alliance

Javadekar termed the Congress-JDS alliance as the most opportunistic.

“This is the most opportunistic alliance. They were abusing each other before the hustings. Rahul Gandhi also had made derogatory remarks against former Prime Minister Deve Gowdaji,” he said.

“Kumaraswamy had said he would imprison Congress leaders for corruption during campaigning.Now I give an open challenge to JD(S) whether it will jail Congress leaders.”

“This we call a ‘surrender deal’, a deal to close all files of corruption against Congress leaders,” he said.

He also said that an alliance not based on ideology does not work.

Javadekar said it was in fact the Congress which has been destroying institutions, including the judiciary, media and Parliament.

“Let me remind Rahul Gandhiji that it was the Congress which imposed the Emergency and censored the media. There are many instances in history where Congress has abused the judiciary and other institutions,” he said.

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