The Centre and the BJP on Monday hit out at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for her criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an article.

While Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said that her angst stemmed from the fact that the people chose a “poor, yet strong and fearless” leader as the Prime Minister instead of her son Rahul Gandhi, BJP president JP Nadda said the more the opposition party and its leaders “lie” and “hate” Modi, the more people will support him.

Javadekar lashed out at the Congress president for her claim that democracy is being “hollowed out” in India. The Union Minister lamented that Sonia expressed support for the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh despite the Supreme Court’s verdict in this regard.

Lauding the Centre’s handling of the Shaheen Bagh protests, he reminded her of how the police during the UPA tenure had fired tear gas shells and resorted to lathi charge on Baba Ramdev and his supporters in 2011 to end his fast on the black money issue.

For his part, Nadda tweeted:  “Combination of despondency and shamelessness is dangerous. Congress possesses both. Empty rhetoric of decency and democracy by the Mother (Sonia Gandhi) is ‘complemented’ by live demonstrations of politics of hate, anger, lies and aggression by the Son (Rahul Gandhi). Double standards galore.”

Congress’s chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala responded to Nadda asking him not to divert and get back to debate on real issues like unemployment, price rise, internal and external aggression concerning the nation ever since Modi regime is in power.

In a multi-pronged attack on the Narendra Modi-led government, Sonia claimed that democracy is at crossroads with its system under assault in India. Sonia slammed Prime Minister saying, “That the economy is in deep crisis is clear. But what is less appreciated is that all the pillars of a democratic system of governance are under assault.”

She alleged that dissent is being deliberately stifled as terrorism and added, “The fundamental right to freedom of expression has been systematically suspended through suppression and intimidation. Dissent is deliberately stifled as “terrorism” or branded as an “anti-national activity”. Many institutions that are meant to uphold the rights of citizens and society at large have been co-opted or subverted.”

“The Indian State now diverts attention from real problems of the people by pronouncing bogus threats to “national security” everywhere.” Saying that some of these threats are real and have to be dealt with uncompromisingly, Sonia added, “but the Narendra Modi government and the ruling BJP conjure up sinister conspiracies behind every political protest, indeed behind any and everything they see as opposition to them.” “India’s hard-won democracy is being hollowed out,” Sonia Gandhi wrote.

Recalling the emergency the BJP chief said the Congress can never pontificate on the freedom of speech, claiming that they have had contempt for dissenting voices for decades. “We saw glimpses of it during the Emergency. Later on, the Rajiv Gandhi government made a brazen attempt to weaken press freedom. A free Press rattles Congress,” he alleged.

Dubbing the Congress “blessed” Maharashtra government as a “laboratory of usage of brute state power”, Nadda said troubling opponents and curbing freedom of speech in “trademark Congress style” are visible in the working of the State Government.