Congress spokesperson and media cell in-charge Veerapa Moily accused Lal Kishenchand Advani of keeping former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the dark about the hijacking of IC-814 even though the news was conveyed to the then deputy prime minister incharge of the country's home ministry by the former director of Intelligence Bureau Shyamal Dutta within minutes of the event taking place.
Addressing a press conference, Moily like the Bharatiya Janata Party depended upon a write up from rediff.com dated December 10, 2000, to take pot shots at Advani calling him the weakest home minister the country has ever had.
Quoting rediff.com he said the way the political leadership of the National Democratic Alliance behaved in its handling of the Kandahar crisis, it was "perceived at the popular level, as a weak response. In the process, comparison was made between the leadership under NDA and in the past," Moiley reminded Advani that the manner Congress government at the Centre handled the Hazratbal incident forcing the terrorists holed inside to ask for safe passage.
He wanted to know why it took more than two days for the defence minister to attend the cabinet committee on security when the nation was facing such a grave crisis.
"It is the duty of every minister to leave all personal and political work and rush to Delhi and here we have a defence minister who took time to respond," Moily said.
"The Indian political leadership was not able to segregate between people's emotions and national security," he said.
Short of calling Advani a liar, Moily said he would like a sober word to be used for the prime minister-in-waiting who mislead the nation by claiming that he was not aware of Jaswant Singh's trip to Kandahar to release the three terrorists.
"What kind of home minister was he if he did not know what is going on in the cabinet committee on security. He should have resigned if he did not know about Jaswant's trip," the Congress spokesperson said.
Abishek Singhvi, advocate, asked the BJP leader questions about governance. Particularly, the party's credentials on nationalism.
"They have been taking credit for the valour of Indian jawans and officers who fought the Kargil battle," Singhvi said.
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