Lok Sabha Polls 2014: BJP makes Robert Vadra a major campaign issue

NEW DELHI: The gloves are comprehensively off as campaigning has turned more personal in the ongoing elections, with the BJP, including its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, increasingly hurling barbs at Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra over his real estate dealings.

The move is part of the BJP’s strategy to no longer treat Vadra with kid gloves. It marks a break from the omerta or code of silence that top leaders of the two national parties appeared to observe for years with regard to each other’s close family members.

“The party saw the close personal attacks on our prime ministerial candidate and it was decided that we too should not hold back. They have many skeletons in their cupboard,” said BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

This is a sharp shift from the time when news of alleged soft loans from a real estate developer to Vadra first made it to the headlines but the BJP leadership refrained from raking up the issue in Parliament despite pressure from the party’s cadre, a senior leader said.

Modi’s acknowledgement of his estranged but not divorced wife Jashodaben in his affidavit while filing his nomination papers for the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat provided an opportunity to the Congress to question his silence on his marital status in affidavits filed ahead of four previous elections.

Congress V-P Rahul Gandhi said at a rally, “We don’t know how many elections he has fought, but for the first time he has written that he is married. In Delhi, they talk about respecting women, but his wife’s name never found its way into the affidavit.” After this, the BJP felt that the Congress’ first family was fair game.

On Saturday, at a rally in Katihar, in Bihar, Modi said, “An American paper (The Wall Street Journal had carried a story on Vadra’s business dealings) has presented a new model — of having one lakh rupees and converting that to `300 crore in four years. This is the RSVP model — Rahul, Sonia, Vadra and Priyanka,” he said.

Senior leader Ananth Kumar said in Indore, “Till now mother and son had looted, now the son-in-law has joined.”