New Delhi : Amid the Congress leaders eulogising party vice-president Rahul Gandhi for the Centre’s decision to withdraw the ordinance on convicted lawmakers, senior BJP leader L K Advani on Friday credited President Pranab Mukherjee for the government volte-face.

“The victory that has come to the country by withdrawal of this illegal and immoral ordinance has thus been thanks only to the Rashtrapati, who has proved that UPA would err seriously if it assumed that like most other Congressmen who had earlier occupied the high office of President, he too would remain a rubber stamp President,” Advani posted on his blog. Advani felt that “Rahul’s victory was really confined to rubbing off UPA’s authority, and not merely the prime minister’s. So, the nonsense slur hurled at the Cabinet approved ordinance cannot apply only to the prime minister and his ministers. Soniaji must also share responsibility.”

Advani said that after the BJP delegation met the President on September 26 objecting the ordinance, “we got the clear impression that he was convinced that the situation merited his intervention”.

He slammed Rahul Gandhi for using words like “nonsense” and that the ordinance should be “torn” and “thrown away”.