Her party’s “chargesheet” against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi may have made no reference to the Godhra killings and the massacre that followed five years ago but Congress president Sonia Gandhi today took the gloves off. Using the BJP’s criticism of the Centre on tackling terrorism, she opened a new front in the party’s election battle reminding voters of what happened in 2002.

“So many of my brothers and sisters are terrorized by government-protected goons here,” she said, launching her poll campaign at a huge gathering in this tribal pocket. “Sachchayee yeh hai ki aj Gujarat ki sarkar chalane wale jhoothe, beimaan aur dharm aur maut ke saudagar hain (The truth is that in today’s Gujarat, those who run the Government are liars, corrupt and peddlers of religion and death).”

These words assume significance as they come at a time when Modi himself refuses to be drawn into any reference to the 2002 massacres and the Congress, too, has been wary of raising the issue.

“Raghunath and Akshardham temples were attacked while their Foreign Minister went to Kandahar to release terrorists,” she said in a reference to Jaswant Singh’s terrorists-for-hostages swap in the IC 814 hijack. “The same people now talk of safety and terrorism,” she said.

“Kuch logon ko khote sikke chalane ki aadat hai,” she said, in a veiled attack on Modi’s recent rallies in which he shows a two-rupee coin to his audience to make the point that while the state’s growth has surged, all he has is a two-rupee coin, an example of his “clean governance.”

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