NEW DELHI: Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party engaged in war of words after the grand old party’s former MP claimed meddling by US and Israel intelligence agencies in the 2014 Parliamentary elections. Kumar Ketkar blamed Mossad and CIA for the Congress party’s loss.BJP MP Sambit Patra, in turn, quipped saying that the Congress lost because “Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI” carried forward its “agenda in India”.
Here’s what former Congress MP said
The former Rajya Sabha MP noted that the party secured 145 Lok Sabha seats in 2004 and increased its tally to 206 in the 2009 general election. If that trajectory had continued, he argued, the Congress might have reached around 250 seats and easily held on to power. Instead, the party’s seat count plunged to 44 in 2014, he observed.”There were organisations that acted in a way that ’till the time we do not bring down the Congress from 206, we would not be able to play games here (in India),” he said.”One of the organisations was the CIA and another was the Mossad of Israel. Both had decided that they had to do something in India. If a stable Congress government or a Congress-led alliance government came back to power again, they would not have been able to interfere in India and implement their policies,” he added. “The Mossad prepared detailed data on states and constituencies. The CIA and the Mossad have detailed data on states and constituencies,” the former journalist said.
What BJP said
The BJP countered Congress leader Ketkar’s allegation, insisting that its victories come from the support of “the people, not foreign intelligence agencies”.”Neither the CIA nor the Mossad makes the BJP win. It is the people who make the BJP win. Those who get gas cylinders and housing, as well as the poor, farmers, women and youth, make the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win,” he said.”If you will work on the ISI’s blueprint, seek to reconstruct the Babri mosque, oppose Ram temple… If the Congress follows the ISI agenda, how will it progress?” the BJP leader told reporters at the party headquarters,” he added.