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The rise and rise of PM
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 3
With the emergence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a focal point of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, a new chapter to the history of Parliamentary elections has been added. After Independence, it is for the first time that Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, are seeking votes in the name of a person who does not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi clan. And the person is Manmohan Singh.

Speaking here today, AICC president and chairperson of the UPA Sonia Gandhi said: “The country needs a strong government that could only be provided by the Congress under the leadership of Manmohan Singh”. And she has stated this not only in Punjab, but also in other parts of the country.

It is, perhaps, Manmohan Singh’s credibility among the middle class that has pushed the humble PM to the electoral centrestage.

‘Party will never give in to terrorists’
Amarjit Thind
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 3
Launching a broadside at the BJP, AICC chief Sonia Gandhi has said the Congress has always fought terrorism and will never bend before terrorists as had been done by the NDA in the past.

She was in the city to address an election rally in favour of local candidate Mohinder Singh Kaypee this noon. AICC general secretary Mohsina Kidwai and Leader of Opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal accompanied her. Addressing an impressive gathering, she said the Congress had lost many of its great leaders to terrorists but had never capitulated to their demands or terror tactics. In Punjab, Beant Singh laid down his life and so did Darshan Singh Kaypee besides a host of other nationalists.

In an apparent reference to the Kandhar hijacking, she said those who were talking about national security conveniently forgot that they were the ones who released terrorists and also sent a minister along to release them in the custody of the hijackers.