Shiv Sena attacks Cong over Sonia's re-election

Mumbai, Sep 4: As an air of celebration engulfed Congress offices across the nation on the re-election of Sonia Gandhi as the party president for the fourth consecutive term, Shiv Sena yet again brought up the issue for her nationality.

In another one of those famous editorial pieces in the party mouthpiece Saamna, Shiv Sena attacked the Congress and Sonia Gandhi.

Sena said that this is the same Congress which was founded by a foreigner A O Hume. He, however, never became the party chief since he was of foreign origin but instead, Hume chose to make Indian stalwarts like Surendranath Banerjee or Dadabhai Nauroji as party heads, the editoral said.

Going back to the happenings of 1998, the editorial said, that when leaders like Sharad Pawar, Makhan Lal Fotedar and Bhajan Lal forcibly evicted the then Congress chief Sitaram Kesri and made Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia as party chief, they believed that they could put a gun to her head and do as they wished.

But these very leaders were compelled to leave the party questioning Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins, and subsequently Manmohan Singh was made the prime minister, the piece noted.

The editorial piece went on to say that now Sonia Gandhi's only aim was to ensure that her son Rahul Gandhi becomes the Prime Minister of the country and that no one dared to challenge that.

Also raising the issue of gender, the Bal Thackeray-led party wondered if there was a "man" in the Congress party.

"Once it was said that (the late prime minister) Indira Gandhi was the only 'man' in her cabinet. In Sonia Gandhi's era, we have to ask if there is a single 'man' left in the Congress? If so, they would not have so meekly surrendered the party's pride before a foreigner woman," the editorial said.

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