BJP is only against Cong, not against corruption: Sonia

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday kickstarted the party’s poll campaign in poll-bounded Himachal Pradesh. Addressing a rally at Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, Sonia focused on the subject of corruption. Sonia said the Congress has acted sternly in dealing with corruption. She said the party is bidding to topple the BJP from office in Himachal Pradesh.

“Corruption is a cancer, which has spread to our entire system. We brought RTI to fight corruption. We dealt with corruption related complaints sternly. BJP is only against Congress not against corruption,” she said.

On other issue, she said, “Rise in price of essential commodities is a concern for us. Congress ruled state government's reduced VAT, but why Himachal Pradesh govt didn’t reduced VAT. UPA decided to bring FDI. BJP is unnecessarily creating noise. We have left it to the state government whether to implement FDI in their respective states or not,” she said.

Sonia said Central funds to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore allocated to the state had lapsed last year as the BJP government did not make adequate efforts to implement various Central schemes in the state. "There is a difference between the promises and actual work of the BJP," she said and charged that the saffron party was only pretending to fight corruption and rising prices and did little efforts on the ground.

"These people (BJP) are taking big about tackling corruption when they themselves are deep into it. Their fight against corruption is just a show off. Before raising a finger against corruption they should introspect," she said. Sonia said it was a matter of shame that corruption had afflicted the system of governance and said only the Congress party had made attempts to tackle it head on by implementing the Right to Information law.

"Who brought the RTI Act? Did the BJP enact it? It was the UPA which brought the RTI Act to tackle corruption," she said. Elections to the Himachal Pradesh assembly are scheduled to be held on November 4.

Sonia sought to defend the recent hike in diesel prices contending that it was inevitable because of the increase in international crude prices. The UPA chairperson, however, pointed out that Congress-ruled states had reduced VAT on diesel to cushion the impact of the diesel price hike, a move which was lacking in the BJP-ruled states.

(With additional inputs from PTI)