‘Modi must clarify his educational qualification’

The Congress on Saturday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify his educational qualifications — an issue that has kicked up a controversy — while brushing aside his attack on Ms Sonia Gandhi on the AgustaWestland deal.

“First of all, if the Prime Minister would be kind enough to clarify his educational qualifications, the rest of the diatribe would then be answered,” Congress spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters.

Mr Tewari was asked how he compared the RTI seeking information about the PM’s degrees with an RTI query that enquired about the religion of the Congress president. Then it was said that the matter was a personal information and the Congress party had justified the decision of the RTI.

“There is no comparison at all because you are really trying to compare apples and pears. Here, on an election affidavit, there are certain statements which have been made by the Prime Minister,” he said.

Claiming that the PM seems to have “very selective yardsticks”, he said, when it comes to the Congress, there is the “obvious vendetta and witchhunt”. “But all these yardsticks do not seem to apply to Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vyapam. They do not seem to apply to the Rajasthan CM and her linkage with Lalit Modi,” he said.

It does not seem to apply to the chief minister of Chhattisgarh and the involvement of that government in the PDS scam”, he alleged.

The entire intent of the BJP is to try and create a climate of suspicion using “innuendoes, half-truths and downright lies,” he further alleged.

The Congress also latched on to former Union minister Arun Shourie’s sharp attack on Mr Modi to embarrass the BJP.

“Shourie has accused the Prime Minister of narcissism and of running a one-man presidential government, the direction of which was dangerous for India,” Mr Tewari said.

“What does the BJP have to say about this allegation made by their own ideologue, fellow traveller and a former minister in the NDA government ”

Mr Tewari also sought to know the reaction of the ruling party to Mr Shourie’s charge that there has been “complete mismanagement” of India’s relations with Pakistan and that the Modi dispensation has mishandled the economy.

In an interview, Mr Shourie, a Cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government who has drifted away from the BJP in the recent years, had attacked the Modi government.