Ahmedabad: Hitting back at the Congress, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that it was the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was involved in toppling the maximum number of state governments while adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not toppled any elected government.
He also mentioned that the President's rule was imposed 90 times in the country under the Congress government.
Addressing a public meeting in Ahmedabad, Rajnath Singh said, "Fundamental rights were suspended. It happened during the Congress rule. For 18 months, we all had to remain behind bars".
"Till now, the President's rule has been imposed in the country 132 times under Article 356. Out of which, it was imposed 90 times under the Congress. Indira (Gandhi) Ji had spent half a century in toppling the governments," Rajnath Singh said, adding, "And BJP is accused of undermining the democracy".
"I want to ask the Congress," Has our government, Prime Minister been involved in toppling any elected government? Whenever action is taken against corruption, they say that democracy is in danger. If Enforcement Directorate has done anything wrong, you should go to the Court," the senior BJP leader added.
His comments came a day after the Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi accused the PM of undermining the democracy.
"PM Modi is weakening the democracy. He is attacking the opposition daily. He has frozen Congress' bank accounts. Two Chief Ministers are in jail, my brother (Rahul Gandhi) was also almost kicked out of Parliament. 150 members were suspended in the Winter session recently, only Modiji is honest," She said at a rally at Dharampur village in Valsad in PM Modi's home state of Gujarat on Saturday.
"During the time of the Independence, Mahatma Gandhi had said that now this Congress should be finished. But the Congress leaders did not hear him. But I think that the public has decided to finish the Congress by themselves," Rajnath Singh added.
All 26 parliamentary seats in Gujarat will go to the polls in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on May 7. BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal was elected unopposed in Surat after the nomination papers of the Congress party's candidate Nilesh Kumbhani were rejected, as his three proposers claimed in an affidavit to the district election officer that they had not signed his nomination form.
The third phase will include constituencies from Kutch, Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad East, Ahmedabad West, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Anand, Kheda, Panchmahal, Dahod, Vadodara, Chhota Udaipur, Bharuch, Bardoli, Navsari, and Valsad.
The 2024 general elections are being held in seven phases. Polling for the first phase was held on April 19 and for the second phase it was held on April 26.
The counting and results will be declared on June 4.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)