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Updated: Feb 29, 2020 11:16 IST

The back and forth between the BJP and Congress over the opposition party’s invocation of rajdharma continued on Saturday, a day after Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked it to look within.

Ravi Shankar Prasad had lashed out at the grand old party on Friday for trying to teach it rajdharma or duty after Congress president Sonia Gandhi, leading a party delegation, met President Ram Nath Kovind to seek Home Minister Amit Shah’s resignation for “abdication of duty” during the communal violence in northeast Delhi that has claimed 40 lives so far.

The opposition party also asked Kovind to push the Modi government to follow its ‘rajdharma’.

Kapil Sibal tweeted on Saturday to take on the Union minister’s comments at a press conference.

“Law Minister to Congress : “Please don’t preach us Rajdharma” How can we Mr. Minister ? When you did not listen to Vajpayeeji in Gujarat why would you listen to us !

Listening , learning and obeying Rajdharma not one of your Government’s strong points ! (sic)” he tweeted.

The senior Congress leader was referring to the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s comments over the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in charge of the western state.

At a press conference in Delhi on Friday, Law minister Prasad alleged that the communal violence was an outcome of “instigation” and provocative remarks made by opposition leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi.

Defending his leader, Prasad said home minister Amit Shah was proactive from the very first day of the violence to stop it.

Asked about the controversial remarks made by BJP leaders like Kapil Mishra and Pravesh Verma, he said the party doesn’t approve of their statements.

Hitting out at Sonia Gandhi, he said, “Sonia Gandhi ji, please don’t preach us ‘rajdharma’. Your record is full of its violation and twists and turns for plain and simple vote bank politics.”

“The Congress should look at its face in the mirror of ‘rajdharma’,” Prasad said.

The BJP and Congress had also traded barbs in 2015 over a former external intelligence agency head’s revelation that Vajpayee was upset about the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief AS Dulat had said in an interview to a news channel that Vajpayee had reminded “chief minister Modi to follow rajdharma”.