Chittorgarh/Solapur | April 03, 2004 10:54:36 AM IST It was a clear case of old wine in a new bottle on Friday, with both Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and Congress president Sonia Gandhi trading charges again over the foreign origin issue. 

Advani, however, opted to take the issue to an altogether different plane, when he figuratively rapped both Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj for their personal remarks against Sonia Gandhi, saying that the issue should be tackled as a political rather than a personal one.

Talking to reporters in Chittorgarh on the 21st day of his Bharat Uday Yatra, Advani said that the Congress had been affected the worst by this issue. 

Modi's remarks on Sonia in Gujarat evoked resentment from top BJP leaders in the state, who advised restraint. Swaraj had also attacked Gandhi's foreign origin and criticized her anglicisation of common Indian terms.

Commenting on Washington's decision to grant Pakistan major-non NATO ally status, Advani said that the Indian government had conveyed its unhappiness over the issue to Washington.

On the progress in ties between New Delhi and Islamabad, he said that the joint statement issued at Islamabad on January 6 after the conclusion of the 12th SAARC summit and the subsequent meeting of the foreign secretaries of the two countries on February 18 and 19, should spell out the roadmap for peace and friendship between the two countries.

On the ongoing Indo-Pak cricket series, the Deputy Prime Minister said cricket between the two countries was a small but significant step for improving ties between them. He also described illegal immigration to India as a "horrific" menace for which a national consensus had to be arrived at on citizenship identity cards to strengthen internal security. "Illegal immigration is a major problem for India and it has reached horrific proportions. No other country faces this problem to the magnitude that India does. There is a need for a consensus for creating a national register of citizens and providing citizenship identity cards, important for internal security," Advani said.

"We have discussed the issue at the conference of director generals of police and chief ministers. If the Election Commission and political parties also take up the matter for making an ideal voting list, this will enhance the quality of democracy and governance besides facilitating the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants," he added.

In Solapur, Sonia Gandhi said that regardless of whatever her political opponents said of her foreign origin, she had full faith in the people of the country to make the right choice at the right time.

''Regardless of what the BJP say, people have a mind of their own and I have full trust that they would make the right choice,'' she told reporters at Solapur Airport before embarking on her ten-day Jan Sampark Abhiyan in Vidarbha.

She was apparently giving a rejoinder to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's demand for a debate at yesterday's rally in the Dhanu parliamentary constituency near Mumbai on the issue of persons of foreign origin holding high posts.

Gandhi said that while Vajpyee was giving big lectures on running election campaigns with a level of decency, all his colleagues were doing just the opposite "Let them carry on in the same fashion. It would help us. The more they do it the better for us," she remarked.

"It only shows that they have no issues to speak about. They had done this to Indiraji and Rajivji but the love and affection people had for them remained the same," she added.

When asked whether the foreign origin issue being dropped from the NCP manifesto was a success for the Congress led alliance, Gandhi replied in the affirmative. 

The NCP was formed on the issue of her foreign origin in 1999. About the number of seats the Congress led coalition would win from Maharashtra, she said "As many as possible. May be all the 48 seats." 

Asked about the BJP's ''Vision Document'' she said there was nothing new in that and it contained the same issues that the party had spoken about five years ago.

The Congress is contesting 26 seats in Maharashtra, NCP 18 and the rest is left for smaller allies.

The Congress President later left for Bidar in Karnataka from where she would fly to Nagpur and then to Chandrapur to begin the second day of her road show in Maharashtra. (ANI) 

Source: Web India123.com