Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday slammed the Opposition for targeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, terming it as 'shameful' and asserting that he was '100 per cent above board' in the 2G spectrum issue.
Coming out strongly in defence of the prime minister, she reminded the Bharatiya Janata Party that it had to pay the price for trying to 'destroy the image' of Dr Singh during the last Lok Sabha elections and said it should draw a 'lesson' from that.
Hitting back at the BJP for seeking to corner the government over the 2G spectrum scam, a combative Gandhi attacked the Opposition party for retaining B S Yeddyurappa as Karnataka's chief minister and compared this decision with the United Progressive Alliance's action in making former telecom minister A Raja, former external affairs minister Natwar Singh, former minister of state Shashi Tharoor and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan resign from their posts in the wake of corruption charges.
"It is shameful that the person of the integrity of the prime minister should be targeted in this manner," she told reporters when asked to comment on the Opposition's attack on Dr Singh in the 2G spectrum allocation issue.
"Everyone knows the prime minister is 100 per cent above board. Everyone knows what kind of person, what kind of individual he is," she said.
Sending out a message to the BJP, Gandhi said it should learn the 'lesson' of making it "point number one to destroy the image" of Dr Singh in 2009.
"What was the result, they lost," she said referring to the sustained attack of the BJP against Dr Singh in the run up to the last Lok Sabha elections in which the National Democratic Alliance lost. "That should be a lesson for the Opposition," she said.
Seeking to turn the tables on the BJP which is adamant about a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum scam, Gandhi said while her party had removed Natwar Singh, Tharoor and Chavan over allegations of corruption, a similar step was not being taken by the BJP in the case of Yeddyurappa.
"In this case (of 2G), there was a minister (A Raja), we asked him to resign," the UPA chairperson said.
"This is a matter which the party concerned has to decide. As far as Congress party is concerned, I think all of you know; you have all seen how we deal with matters of corruption. Starting from the issue of Volcker deal in which Natwar Singh was involved, we asked him to resign immediately and we set up a judicial inquiry," she said.
"Shashi Tharoor, we asked him to resign. The chief minister of Maharashtra, immediately as soon as United States President (Barack) Obama left, we asked him to resign. It was planned before but we did not want to execute it till the President left because he was going to Maharashtra," Gandhi said.
Comparing the action taken by the Congress and the BJP in respective cases of corruption, she said people of the country will judge both the parties.
"When we compare the action that our party takes with the action other party takes, as you have mentioned the BJP in Karnataka, then I think it is for the people to judge and I am confident that they will judge us more positively then other parties," Gandhi said.
Terming corruption as a 'disease', she said an effective mechanism has to be found to deal with it.
