BJP-led NDA caused `grave damage`: Sonia

New Delhi, Feb 8 (PTI) Virtually launching the campaign
for elections to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian
Parliament), Congress president Sonia Gandhi Sunday accused
the BJP-led NDA of causing "grave damage" to the country's
secular fabric and economy and said the saffron party was
"misleading" people in the name of Lord Rama.

Addressing the party's district and block-level
office-bearers here, she charged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
with trying to make political capital out of terrorism and
said "those who mobilise people on religious lines, mislead
people in the name of Ram cannot become an effective force
against terror."

Gandhi's attack on BJP for using the name of Lord Rama
comes a day after the saffron party chief Rajnath Singh again
raked up the issue of building Ram temple in Ayodhya,
apparently with an eye on the elections.

Accusing BJP of conducting "divisive politics", she
said, "Grave damage has been done to our secular polity,
society and economy by BJP-led NDA. Theirs is a voice of
polarisation, of division, of hatred."

The Congress, on the other hand, "is a voice of social
justice, communal harmony and inclusiveness," she said.

Seeking to blunt BJP's allegation that the Congress is
soft on terror, Gandhi said "a party which has lost two of its
popular leaders to terrorism does not need a certificate from
others".

At the same time, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
chairperson issued a veiled warning to Pakistan, saying those
abetting terrorism in India from across the borders will be
given a "befitting reply" and they should not construe New
Delhi's "restraint" as weakness.

Describing terrorism as one of the major challenges,
Gandhi said, "The recent barbaric terror attacks of Mumbai and
Assam remind us of the pain we are going through. But we have
no doubt that we will overcome this difficult situation."

She asserted that the UPA government will tackle the
problem of terrorism "without any discrimination," apparently
responding to BJP's allegation that Congress was appeasing the
minorities.

In this fight, she said the UPA government drew
inspiration from late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Alleging that BJP-led NDA was trying to make political
capital out of the issue of terrorism, she said "the
opposition created hurdles in Parliamentary functioning and
also caused undue delay in passing of the anti-terror law."

She, however, said the Congress did not take any
"political advantage" of the terrorism issue when it was in
opposition.

The Congress president also accused the BJP-led NDA of
playing communal politics.

Gandhi said Congress was the only party which believes
that communal harmony and economic development were two sides
of the same coin.

Seeking a fresh mandate for the UPA on the basis of "our
solid and substantial accomplishments", the Congress president
said BJP-NDA speaks for the "privileged few" while the
Congress was the voice of the multitude and the aam aadmi
(common man)".

She insisted that the government had fulfilled most of
the promises made in the Common Minimum Programme and in this
regard listed the programmes undertaken for the benefit of
minorities, farmers, women, socially and economically
downtrodden and others during the last four years.

She highlighted the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, which led
to end of the country's isolation in the field, as one of the
major achievements of the Manmohan Singh government and said
it would benefit even the rural areas of the country.

Referring to the global financial crisis, Gandhi said
while the world was going through the economic recession,
India is "demonstrating resilience" because of the policies of
previous and present Congress government's policies.

But "There is no room for complacency," she said. PTI