Delhi polls: Cong slams Harsh Vardhan over polio eradication claims

New Delhi: Slamming Harsh Vardhan over his polio eradication claims, one of the campaign themes for BJP for the Delhi Assembly elections, Congress today threatened to move Election Commission demanding cancellation of the nomination of the saffron party’s chief ministerial candidate. Ridiculing BJP as being “Bahut Jhoothi Party”, AICC General Secretary for Delhi, Shakeel Ahmed, also said that Harsh Vardhan was showing a syndrome of resorting to lies. [caption id=“attachment_1208557” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Harsh Vardhan. AFP[/caption] “Harsh Vardhan was health minister of Delhi between 1993 to 1998. In 1998, reported polio cases in Delhi were 47 and 73 in 1999. How he eradicated polio?” Ahmed questioned in a post on ’twitter.com’. Talking to PTI, Ahmed said, “When he remitted office in 1998, there were 47 cases of polio in Delhi. Figures show that the number rose to 73 in 1999. So how did he eradicate the disease if the number of polio cases rose the next year. “BJP is running a series of election advertisements on radio, latching on to the false claim about Harsh Vardhan. “If it does not withdraw these advertisements from all media platforms, including radio, within 24 hours, a Congress delegation will meet Election Commission on Monday and demand that the nomination of the BJP leader be cancelled as he was misleading the people by spreading lies,” he said. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, had a few days back launched the revised edition of Harsh Vardhan’s book on polio eradication, ‘A Tale of Two Drops’. She had also raised a call for “eradicating the Congress like Harsh Vardhan eradicated polio”. Ahmed said, “BJP is actually ‘Bahut Jhoothi Party’. It believes in spreading only lies and Harsh Vardhan is also showing the same syndrome.” PTI