Badly bruised by a fierce BJP assault in the early rounds of the presidential campaign, Congress on Friday launched a counter-attack by questioning opposition candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s decision to join the police force of the British Raj in 1942 when the country was swayed by the passion of the Quit India movement.
"When people left behind everything to join the freedom struggle responding to Mahatma Gandhi’s call, Shekhawat thought it fit to be part of the repressive colonial police," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.
"No one knows whose ideology motivated him but the fact remains that he left the force only when India became independent," he said, urging Shekhawat or his campaign managers to explain this part of his past
now that he was contesting for the highest constitutional position.
If that wasn’t enough, Singhvi challenged Shekhawat to "come clean" on the compensation scam involving his son-in-law which had caused a furore in the Rajasthan assembly when Shekhawat was the chief minister. "Those living in glass houses must not throw stones," the spokesman said, claiming that Shekhawat’s statement in the assembly about a CBI probe into the scam was misleading. The Centre had to clarify that the state government did not recommend a CBI probe, he said.
Without taking names, the Congress spokesman also hinted at Shekhawat’s decision as chief minister to appoint a controversial woman as chairperson of the Rajasthan social welfare board and sought an explanation.
"The BJP has been hurling allegations about Pratibha Patil’s relations, but these facts seek to indict Shekhawat directly," he said.
The move to dissect Shekhawat’s past seems to have been jointly worked out by Congress and Left. In an article in the party mouthpiece, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury wondered at Shekhawat’s records as a policeman which had earned him applause from the British rulers at a crucial juncture of the nationalist movement.
However, that prompted Shekhawat’s spokesperson Sushma Swaraj to recall the Communists’ role in the Quit India Movement and ask Yechury to explain his party’s "silence" on the Chinese aggression of 1962.
"When people left behind everything to join the freedom struggle responding to Mahatma Gandhi’s call, Shekhawat thought it fit to be part of the repressive colonial police," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.
"No one knows whose ideology motivated him but the fact remains that he left the force only when India became independent," he said, urging Shekhawat or his campaign managers to explain this part of his past
now that he was contesting for the highest constitutional position.
If that wasn’t enough, Singhvi challenged Shekhawat to "come clean" on the compensation scam involving his son-in-law which had caused a furore in the Rajasthan assembly when Shekhawat was the chief minister. "Those living in glass houses must not throw stones," the spokesman said, claiming that Shekhawat’s statement in the assembly about a CBI probe into the scam was misleading. The Centre had to clarify that the state government did not recommend a CBI probe, he said.
Without taking names, the Congress spokesman also hinted at Shekhawat’s decision as chief minister to appoint a controversial woman as chairperson of the Rajasthan social welfare board and sought an explanation.
"The BJP has been hurling allegations about Pratibha Patil’s relations, but these facts seek to indict Shekhawat directly," he said.
The move to dissect Shekhawat’s past seems to have been jointly worked out by Congress and Left. In an article in the party mouthpiece, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury wondered at Shekhawat’s records as a policeman which had earned him applause from the British rulers at a crucial juncture of the nationalist movement.
However, that prompted Shekhawat’s spokesperson Sushma Swaraj to recall the Communists’ role in the Quit India Movement and ask Yechury to explain his party’s "silence" on the Chinese aggression of 1962.