UNION Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman accused the opposition of continuously running negative campaigns against the BJP and PM Modi, and said that the Supreme Court "crushed" their campaigns and "exposed them".
"Opposition continuously ran negative campaigns against BJP and used abusive language to attack PM on many issues like Pegasus, Rafael deal, Enforcement Directorate money laundering, Central Vista, Economic basis-reservations, Demonetization," said Sitharaman while addressing a press conference at NDMC Convention Centre, New Delhi on Monday.
"All these cases were fought in court and judgment has been in favour of the central government SC crushed Opposition's negative campaigns and exposed them through legal responses," she added.
She also spoke about the speculations regarding the extension of the tenure of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president JP Nadda, and mentioned that there was not any discussion regarding the matter on the first day of the National Executive meeting of the party.
It was speculated ahead of the meeting that Nadda, whose three-year term as the party chief (after he succeeded Amit Shah) is scheduled to conclude on January 20 this year, would get another term as the party president in view of the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
She further mentioned that discussions were also held on the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections which the party won and lost respectively towards the end of last year and said that the party changed the "anti-incumbency to pro-incumbency" in the Western state while the margin of victory and defeat remained less than 1 per cent in the hill state.
"In Gujarat, we have registered victory by changing anti-incumbency to pro-incumbency. This is not an ordinary but a historic victory. The impact of Gujarat's victory will definitely be seen in the upcoming elections as well including the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In Himachal, we found it difficult to change the custom, but the difference between victory and defeat was less than 1 per cent. This was also discussed," she said.
Besides this, the other issues that were discussed include Kashi Tamil Sangaman conducted in Varanasi last year and the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign in the run-up to Independence Day in 2022, and PM Modi's 'Mann Ki Baat'.
The finance minister added that during the press conference, several topics were discussed including the Opposition's derogatory remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, G20, and Assembly elections.
"Today a briefing has been held on how the activities of the 4 states are progressing which include Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Karnataka," she said.
While responding if the extension of Nadda's tenure was discussed during the meeting, the Minister said, "No discussion was held on that. Today the political proposal has been discussed."
"There have been detailed discussions over 9 points introduced in the resolution for this year's NEC. The first discussion was on how opposition parties are using abusive language for attacking PM Modi ji," Sitharaman said.
(With inputs from ANI)