New Delhi: With Congress trying to corner Union Minister V K Singh in Parliament over his dog analogy, BJP on Saturday accused it of practising Goebbels' tactics by repeating lies against him to make it sound true and raked up atrocities against Dalits under Congress rule to hit back.
The party pitted its Dalit spokesperson Bizay Sonkar Shastri for the counter-attack who also took a dig at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for his comment that Singh had violated the Constitution, seeking to know which Article did he violate.
Another BJP spokesperson, G V L Narsimha Rao, said people were wise and could catch a lie as he referred to Gandhi's interaction with students in Bengaluru where some of them did not agree with his criticism of certain policies of the Narendra Modi government.
"Congress party seems to believe Goebbels' theory. So, it is lying frequently. People are wise and can catch a lie quickly and Rahul Gandhi had one such experience recently," Rao said. Goebbels was the Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany.
Congress and BSP have been protesting against Singh's comments, resulting in work being paralysed in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP-led NDA lacks numbers to push its legislative agenda.
The Union Minister had made a controversial dog analogy while answering questions about the alleged incident in Haryana's Faridabad in which two toddlers of a Dalit family were burned alive on the intervening night of 19-20 October.
BJP said the minister had clarified time and again and had expressed regret over the matter. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had also spoken about it in his statement in Parliament, they said.
Citing official records, both leaders told a press conference that the cases of atrocities against Dalits in Haryana saw a rise by two-and-a-half times during 2004-13 when
Congress was in power in the state. The total number of cases stood at 3,198, they said while citing a number of incidents, including one in Mirchpur.
"Did Sonia Gandhi then find time to shed her tears over these cases?" Rao said.
The government, they said, had reached out to Congress for its help in running of Parliament, but the opposition party was disrupting work.
"People want Parliament to address their concerns. Government is in a mood for accommodation. It wants to take everybody along," Rao said.
"We expect Congress to cooperate (in Parliament's functioning) and it should not cause disruption over baseless and illogical claims," Shastri said.
