Mumbai: Sharpening his attack on LK Advani, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused him of being strong in words and weak in action, and said that the BJP's prime ministerial hopeful was "weeping in a corner" while the Babri Masjid was demolished by hoodlums.
The usually soft-spoken Singh has traded verbal punches with Advani in recent days but Monday's attack at a press conference in Mumbai was the sharpest.
"He has the unique ability to combine strength in speech with weakness in action," Singh said about Advani, who has been calling the prime minister the weakest India has had and of having "abdicated authority" in favour of Sonia Gandhi.
"Mr Advani likes to call me a weak Prime Minister. I cannot help pointing out that when held to the fire during the Kandahar hijacking, the BJP's 'Iron Man' was quick to melt.
"He agreed to release the terrorists and subjected his Cabinet colleague Shri Jaswant Singh to the humiliation of having to personally escort the terrorists to their safe haven," Singh said in a prepared statement circulated at the press conference.
He said throughout his life he had believed that substance triumphs over style, performance over public relations and hard work over short cuts.
"I am not not a sloganeer. I will readily concede that most of my opponents make more rousing speeches. They have more catchy phrases and may run better marketing campaigns.
"But unlike the NDA's prime ministerial candidate, I will not not be found weeping in a corner while hoodlums tear down a centuries-old mosque. Nor will I be found wringing my hands in frustration while one of my chief ministers condones a pogrom targeted at minorities," he said in the hard-hitting statement.
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Singh said, "And I will certainly not not say things in Pakistan that offend every Indian and then abandon my stand when it becomes politically inconvenient within my party."
"Mr Advani has the unique ability to combine strength in speech with weakness in action. This is not not the kind of strength we need."
He said when there was a terrorist attack on Parliament during NDA rule the country again saw another round of empty rhetoric and the then government was unable to get even an acknowledgement, let alone an apology or corrective action from Pakistan.
"When terrorists attacked in Mumbai in November and held large number of people hostage, we did not not send our foreign minister to negotiate with them and concede their demands."
"We sent highly trained commandos that killed nine of them and captured one alive," he said. This was the difference between the UPA and the NDA governments, he added.
The PM said, the NDA released three terrorists from custody in exchange for the freedom of passengers in Kandahar.
One of these was a dreaded terrorist who is the founder of Jaish-e-Mehmood. He is still active in promoting terrorist activities in our country."
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