Don't imitate Congress philosophy, Congress to Advani

New Delhi, May 2 (UNI) The Congress today charged senior BJP Leader L K Advani with 'imitating' its philosophy of inclusive growth, scholarship for needy, focus on agriculture and rural development, and said his ''belated rememberances'' of these were purely for political mileage to cheat people.

''Imitation is the best form of flattery. Mr Advani must be thanked for flattering us by his imitative imagery in his recent addresses,'' AICC Spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi told mediapersons.

Alleging that Mr Advani was behaving in a way that he was in a hurry to become Prime Minister, he said the vocabulary of Mr Advani had, of late, changed to that of the Congress with a new zeal evident in his personality.

He said Mr Advani had no moral right to talk about scholarship for needy as no such scheme was introduced during the BJP-led NDA rule.

In this context, Dr Singhvi pointed out that it was the present government that had allocated Rs 750 crore for giving scholarships to children in classes 8 to 12. About 100,000 schools will be covered under this programme during 2008-09.

''Why didn't this brilliant scheme come to Mr Advani's mind when the NDA government was in power ?'' he said, adding the allocation for education had increased by 33 per cent last year under the UPA rule. ''This has again gone 20 per cent further this year over the last year'' He said such a huge amount had never been earmarked for education in any of the BJP budgets.

With regard to agricultural credit, Dr Singhvi said the UPA government had exceeded the budget target during 07-08. The gross capital formation as expressed by percentage of GDP was 12.5. This was not achieved during the period of the BJP.

''Their six years of rule did not resemble our figure during the four years,'' he said.

Referring to Mr Advani's recent statement dubbing the Manmohan Singh government as the ''most corrupt dispensation'', Dr Singhvi said this condemnation crossed all limits of ''hypocrisy and double standard''.

It was during the NDA rule that the sitting President of the BJP was caught on camera, showing him accepting money.

''No FIR was filed against the BJP President for five years. Now Mr Advani is giving sermons without concrete instances,'' he said.

In this context, he also cited how the residence of then Defence Minister George Fernandes was used to ''mortgage India's defence interests.'' UNI SH HS BD1920