NEW DELHI: After sparing no opportunity to embarrass the BJP-led government in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena was on its best behaviour on Thursday, praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s record in office and taking on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi over her assertion that her party had backed a prominent role for B R Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly.

Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul claimed that Congress had a role to play in Ambedkar’s electoral defeat in the first Lok Sabha election from Mumbai (North) seat and again in a by-election that the Dalit icon contested from Bhandara in Maharashtra.

“If you really had regard for Babasaheb, you should have allowed him to win uncontested,” Adsul told the Congress benches. The Shiv Sena MP’s version, which was not challenged by anyone on the Congress benches, saw BJP rows adding their voice to his cause.

Adsul managed to inject a bit of pungency to the slow afternoon debate in the House, as he challenged Sonia’s remarks about a Constitution being only as good as the government of the day. The Modi government, he said, proved the maxim as it had framed policies aimed at the last man in the queue unlike the Congress regimes which were inefficient and corrupt.

The MP responded to interruptions from the Congress, remarking “hajam kijiye (digest this)”, and said the party had only offered lip service to Ambedkar’s memory. He said it was the NDA that had purchased the London house Ambedkar lived in and set up a memorial in Mumbai’s Indu Mills.

Adsul’s comments would have eased the worries of BJP managers who would hope for more cohesion in the NDA ranks as the rest of the winter session unfolds. In the previous monsoon session, Adsul’s attendance of a dinner hosted by NCP chief Sharad Pawar to mobilize opinion against the land bill had embarrassed the government.

“You made Dalit vote banks, minority vote banks, gathered votes, ruled and indulged in corruption,” Adsul said and defended Modi against the allegation that he had spent more time abroad than at home tending to important domestic issues. The global opinion about India had changed with the installation of the NDA government, he added.

In a dig at Pawar, he said the veteran leader had also picked up a broom after Modi did so when launching the Swachh Bharat programme. He urged the PM to pay more attention to river linking projects, saying innovative schemes could help ameliorate the chronic water shortages of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha and Marathwada areas.