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Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party for L K Advani's remarks that if voted to power his party will not abrogate the nuclear deal, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, on Friday, accused the saffron party of changing its stand on the issue.
"Now they (BJP) are saying that nuclear deal is acceptable to them. These same people did not allow Parliament to function for days and months on the same issue," Sonia said addressing a public meeting in Jetpur in Gujarat. The BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani had recently said in an interview that BJP, if voted to power, will not abrogate the nuclear deal as "we realise it's not easy to do so". After all, it's an international agreement and one signed between two countries and their governments," Advani had said.
On terrorism, Sonia said, "Those pointing fingers at us should introspect terrorist incidents that had happened during their rule. It was due to our policy that after the Mumbai terror attack, Pakistan has for the first time accepted that its soil was used for terrorism against us". Sonia also raised the issue of loan given for the Nano car project without naming either the Tatas or Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had said that the Congress president must do her "homework" before coming to the state. "The government here has given loan worth crores of rupees to industry and they have to repay it after 20 years. But they are ignoring farmers," she said.
The Gujarat government has given a loan to Tatas for relocation of Nano car project from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in the state, which is to be repaid after 20 years. "We do not have any problem against setting up of industries. But, I feel miserable when farmers are ignored," Sonia said. She alleged that the state BJP government was looking for excuses for not implementing the loan waiver scheme introduced by the UPA government since the past two years.
Raising several local issues, Sonia targeted Modi claiming incomplete construction of Narmada dam canals, state government's indifference towards diamond workers who lost their jobs due to recession, corruption in 'Sujalam Suflam Water Project' and closing down of local industries. "It was the Congress government that had started building the Narmada dam. I have learnt that people here are yet to get the water of dam as the state government has not built a small canal network. They have laid pipelines but the water has not reached you," Sonia stated. "Before claiming the success of the Narmada Dam one should ask farmers whether they have received the water or not", she said.