Congress taking credit for Chandrayaan, alleges BJP

Bhopal, Nov 10 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday attacked the Congress party, alleging that it was taking credit for India's maiden mission to the moon. The accolades should have been reserved for the scientists, a BJP spokesman said.

Talking to the media, senior BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy referred to advertisements in national newspapers depicting Congress as taking credit for the mission and said: 'The wheel (Ashoka Chakra) was missing from the tri-colour appearing in the advertisement which shows that the Congress was bent upon falsely taking the credit for the achievement and such an act was uncalled for.'

Rudy said that the credit for the moon mission should go to the scientists of the nation, as has been the case after Pokhran blasts during the regime of the NDA government lead by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Rudy also charged the Congress with compromising the sovereignty of the nation while entering into a nuclear deal with the USA and said that by the time (2025-2030) nuclear power would be available in the country, the demand of power would have climbed to more than one million MW.

Accusing the Congress of being unconcerned about the problems of the common man, the BJP leader said that for the first time inflation had reached 13.88 percent under its tenure.

Rudy's whose visit to the state capital coincided with the launch of his party's campaign for the upcoming state assembly elections also expressed the hope that the BJP would come back to power in the state.

'Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has started his mission to bring Ram Rajya (Ideal rule) in the state and the electorate would certainly bless him,' he said.

BJP president Rajnath Singh formally launched the party's assembly poll campaign in Madhya Pradesh Monday by addressing a meeting at Rewa divisional headquarters.

Party bigwigs M. Venkaiah Naidu, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ananth Kumar, Kalraj Mishra, Sushma Swaraj, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and others also addressed various public meetings in the state as a part of the party's election campaign.