Cong a "sinking ship": Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi, Jun 22: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today termed Congress party as a "sinking ship" and leaders are leaving it as it "lacks leadership".

Addressing BJP workers meeting here, he alleged Congress lacks leadership and listed out the names of people who have left the party including Ajit Jogi, Gurudas Kamat and Vijay Bahaguna. "Everybody is leaving Congress.

It is a sinking ship...the party lack leadership," he said. Naidu said about 35 per cent of the country's population resides in BJP-ruled states while just six per cent in Congress-governed ones like Mizoram, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.

He exuded confidence that BJP will wrest power in Karnataka from Congress in the 2018 assembly elections. Taking a dig at Congress, Left parties, SP, BSP, JD(U) and DMK, he said these "so-called secular" parties did not send a single MP to Rajya Sabha from minority community while BJP's two have been elected to the Upper House of Parliament.

In the recent elections for 57 seats in Rajya Sabha, BJP has sent two minority members —- Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and M J Akbar. Listing out various scams that came out during Congress regime such as 2G, CommonWeath Games, and coal blocks allocation, he said the "greatest" achievement of the Modi government in the last two years is that there was "no allegations, no scam".

Highlighting achievements of the government during the last two years, he asked BJP workers to reach out to maximum people and tell them about the various government initiatives. He said that the inflation was in double digits during the Congress-led UPA rule it has come down to below five per cent now. He said government was taking various steps to control the prices of pulses and vegetables.

"Besides emphasising on increasing the production, the government is considering import of pulses and also check on hoarding to tame the prices," he said. He also said the NDA government also plans to launch a "save democracy" campaign on June 26 to make people aware of the Emergency.

PTI