New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS): A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi publicly rebuked the Maharashtra government over the alleged corruption in the Adarsh housing society issue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday termed it as "contrived anger" and "manufactured dissent" for the sake of his image.
"It was contrived anger. It was artificial anger to show that I am against corruption," BJP leader Arun Jaitley said at a meeting of party workers here.
Addressing a news conference after a brainstorming session with senior party leaders, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said: "As far as corruption is concerned, there is no question of protecting any one."
Gandhi also said the report on the Adarsh housing society allotments should be reconsidered by the Maharashtra cabinet after the Congress-led state government being run in alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party last Friday tabled a report on the alleged Adarsh Society scam in the state assembly and then rejected it.
He also said the Congress was "serious against corruption" and appealed to the opposition to pass the pending bills to fight corruption, saying the Lokpal bill alone was not enough.
Jaitley asked Gandhi why he did not speak when charges of corruption surfaced against the Congress government in Delhi (Commonwealth Games) and at the Centre (2G spectrum and coal mines allocations) in the past years.
He demanded Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's removal as he was named in the Adarsh report.
"Why no action has been taken against Shinde? He should be removed. Why no action against former Congress chief ministers?" Jaitley asked.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, who had to resign in the wake of the Adarsh scam, and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh (now dead) have also been named in the report.
Noting "the Congress has not learnt any lessons," Jaitley, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the Congress was deliberately targeting BJP's prime ministerial nominee and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi through "fake propaganda".
"There has been fake propaganda against Modi. There has been no other leader who has been through such scrutiny," he said.
The Congress leadership was no match for Modi, he said.
"Modi is the most acceptable political leader in the country today. The Congress leadership, including (party chief) Sonia Gandhi and (prime minister) Manmohan Singh are no match for him," said Jaitley.
Referring to the recent cabinet approval to a probe into the alleged 2009 snooping case against Modi's aide Amit Shah, a former minister of state for home in Gujarat, Jaitley said, "This is no way to do politics".