Mumbai, Jul 6 (IANS): The Congress' Maharashtra unit on Thursday questioned the double standards of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which first labelled the Nationalist Congress Party as being ‘corrupt’ and then joined hands with it in the state government.

State Congress President Nana Patole said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly accused the NCP of “Rs 70,000 crore corruption” and a few days later, “honourably” inducted a breakaway faction of the same corrupt party in the Maharashtra government and even awarded them cabinet posts.

“The PM has different sets of standards on the issue of corruption and his anti-corruption rhetoric is hollow. How can you call the NCP a ‘corrupt party’ and then take them in power? The PM and the BJP are protecting the corrupt people,” he said.

Hitting out the BJP, he alleged that "corruption was in the blood of the BJP" and referred to the previous BJP government in Karnataka which was known as ’40 per cent commission’, but the same unscrupulous people enjoyed the backing of its top leadership.

“The BJP is struggling to increase the party’s strength by inducting corrupt people from other parties… Such type of politics is dangerous for the country’s democracy,” warned Patole, speaking to the media after the party’ Core Committee meeting to discuss the upcoming parliamentary and Assembly elections.

He asserted that whenever the BJP senses electoral defeat, it starts playing dirty politics by splitting other parties, scaring the Opposition leaders with the fear of unleashing central agencies like the ED, the CBI, and the IT Department and blatantly crushing democracy in the country.

He added that the state Congress had decided to offer a headlong challenge to the BJP’s "dictatorial tendencies" and raise the questions of the government’s all-round failures, chiefly inflation, unemployment, farmers, youth, etc, with the masses across Maharashtra.

The crucial Congress Core Committee meet was addressed by Patole, with senior leaders including Congress Legislature Party Leader Balasaheb Thorat, ex-Union Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, ex-CMs Ashok Chavan, and Prithviraj Chavan, Manikrao Thakre, Working President M. Arif Naseem Khan, Basavaraj Patil, Praniti Shinde, Satej Patil, etc.

He said that the meeting expressed serious concerns over the BJP’s power-hungry politics and resolved to give a united political fight and end this trend in the state and the country.

To a question on some Congress MLAs planning to quit and join the state government, Patole scotched them as “deliberate misinformation” spread by the BJP to spread confusion among the Congress workers, and stated that “nobody will quit our party”.

He pointed out even when some individual leaders had left the party, it did not affect the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance of Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena-UBT which continues to be strong and will fight unitedly in the upcoming elections.

Patole said that the people are disgusted with the BJP style of politics in the state and “will teach a fitting lesson” to them in the next elections.