Criticising the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the political crisis in Karnataka and Goa, senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh also accused it of amassing a fortune during demonetisation and using it now for ‘buying’ opposition party MLAs.

“The BJP and its leaders have earned so much money during demonetisation that they are buying legislators, just as one buys goods in a shop,” Mr. Singh told reporters here after visiting the Vitthal-Rukmini temple in Pandharpur.

The Mumbai Police also came in for some criticism for refusing to allow Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar to meet rebel MLAs staying in a Mumbai hotel.

“Mr. Shivakumar had come to Mumbai to meet his friends (the rebel legislators) who were not answering his calls. But Mumbai Police denied him the right to meet them,” he said.

In this context, Mr. Singh asserted that the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh was safe. Chief Minister Kamal Nath has the support of 121 MLAs, he said and added that it was a mere BJP ploy to spread rumours of possible destabilisation.

Asked about Rahul Gandhi’s resignation as president of Congress following the results of the Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Singh said he deserved to be praised for his willingness to take responsibility for the defeat.

“From 1968 to the present day, the Congress has split twice. Both times, the people as well as dedicated Congress workers have regarded the party helmed by a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family as the real ‘Congress’. Given this sentiment, we had hoped Mr. Gandhi would continue leading the party. But now that he has clarified that no member of the family will be the president, the working committee should decide on a new leader,” Mr. Singh said.

Chastising the Centre’s economic policies, Mr. Singh said that the recent Budget made no mention of the unemployment figures and dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of the country becoming a $5 trillion economy as a “pipe-dream” dished out to hoodwink the people.

“There needs to be a sustained double-digit growth which is nowhere in evidence before one can think of economic growth in such bombastic terms. But with the industrial and manufacturing sectors lagging, this is not possible,” he said, adding that the Prime Minister however, did know how to sell dreams to the people.

He again flayed the Modi government over the February 14 Pulwama terror strike, reiterating that the Kashmir Police had warned of an IED attack on Februaury 8 which was ignored by the Centre.

“The first statement from the government after the Pulwama strike was that 3.5 quintal explosives was in the vehicle [driven by the suicide bomber] which rammed the CRPF convoy. How did the government know the precise quantity of explosives? Was there any prior intelligence? If so, why was this input ignored?” Mr. Singh wanted to know.

Mr. Singh censured the Prime Minister for failing to assign any responsibility to a senior member of the government following the strike despite talking tough on weeding out terrorism.

“Sri Lanka’s intelligence chief resigned after the Easter Sunday bombings in April this year… When the UPA was in power, home minister Shivraj Patil resigned in 2008 after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks along with the then chief minister of Maharashtra (Vilasrao Deshmukh). Despite a disaster of the magnitude of Pulwama, no one from the government was held accountable nor has any one taken responsibility for it so far,” he said attacking Mr. Modi for his double standards on combating terrorism.

On a question regarding his phone number cropping up in one of the letters recovered from arrested activists in the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, he said: “My number is on the website... if the police think I was involved in terror acts, I dare them to arrest me.”

Mr. Singh’s cell phone number had allegedly surfaced in one of the so-called Naxal communications seized by the Pune city police in its multi-city raids, on June 6, on the homes of activists Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and three others in the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon clashes case.