PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday slammed the Congress, accusing it of failing to rally the opposition in support of the Aam Aadmi Party, whose leaders are being investigated by central agencies.
Congress leader Manickam Tagore hit back, saying Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his "gang" were caught in a "real corrupt act" and deserve to be brought to justice.
Mufti took to Twitter also to remind the Congress that its leaders too were "victims" of the "Enforcement Directorate onslaught".
Delhi Congress leaders and workers staged a protest on Saturday demanding the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia a day after the CBI carried out raids at his residence in connection with the alleged irregularities in the rollout of Delhi's Excise Policy 2021-22.
"Sad that the Congress is unable to rise above party interests because AAP is a formidable opponent. Having been a victim themselves of ED (Enforcement Directorate) onslaught yet they are joining BJPs propaganda.
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"At a time when agencies are being weaponised, the opposition should've rallied together (sic)," the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said.
Tagore, the Lok Sabha member from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu, wondered why the Congress should give AAP leaders a "safe passage" when they had "thrown dirt on all honest political leadership".
"Manish Sisodia and his gang were caught in a real corrupt act. Delhi lost revenue but the gang gained. Why give them safe passage? Let the law take its course," the two-term Lok Sabha member said.
"This gang has thrown dirt on all honest political leadership. They deserve to be caught and brought before justices," Tagore said, in an apparent reference to the anti-corruption stir launched by Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare and others against the Congress-led UPA government in 2012.
The Kejriwal-led AAP wiped out the Congress in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections, a shock from which the grand old party is yet to recover. The Congress failed to open its account in the Delhi Assembly in the 2015 and the 2020 polls.
Congress also lost the Punjab Assembly elections to the AAP earlier this year.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)