Baijayant Jay Panda Slams Congress For 'Mean-Minded' Attacks On PM Modi, Sachin Pilot Says BJP Lowering Political Discourse

Congress leader Sachin Pilot hit back, accusing the BJP of making personal attacks against party president Sonia Gandhi and lowering the political discourse.

The two leaders made the remarks during a panel discussion at the launch of author-journalist Rasheed Kidwai's book "Leaders, Politicians, Citizens", in which he has compiled stories of 50 personalities who influenced India's political landscape.

Panda said for two decades, Prime Minister Modi has been the subject of attacks in a very "mean-minded (and) uncivil way".

"He (Modi) won in the district court and that is when some of these mean-minded attacks should have stopped because he was cleared at (by) the district court. It did not stop. In High Court, he was cleared, then at least some of the mean-minded attacks should have stopped but they continued for 20 years until the Supreme Court cleared it (him)," the BJP leader said.

"When I said the prime minister has been abused day in and day out for the last 20 years, it is primarily by the Congress," he said. Countering Panda, Pilot said the BJP has targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi, making personal remarks many times.

"The political attacks, the personal attacks, the disinformation, the bad- mouthing, the gossip-mongering that is happening primarily towards the Congress is leading to an atmosphere that is not healthy," he said.

"To say that the Congress leadership should just take everything and sit back because we have lost one or two elections, I also think that is not correct because we are well within our rights to say what we want to say," he added.

Pilot said the acrimony and largely what has happened for the last seven-eight years in Delhi has led to a sort of friction and lowering of the debate and discourse, which is not healthy.

Kidwai's book profiles leading political figures such as Sheikh Abdullah, Jyoti Basu, Sheila Dikshit, Rajiv Gandhi, APJ Abdul Kalam, Pranab Mukherjee, Ahmed Patel, Rajesh Pilot, P V Narasimha Rao, Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"Leaders, Politicians, Citizens", which hit the stands recently, has been published by Hachette India.

(with inputs from PTI)