BJP invokes ‘sarcasm,ridicule’ against PM

“It is the UPA’s chairperson who is the last word on policy and not the Prime Minister. For the future,the party cadres look at the heir apparent of the Congress party’s first family and not the Prime Minister,” leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha,Sushma Swaraj,and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley,said in a joint press statement.

“The Indian Prime Minister,Dr Manmohan Singh,is synonymous with indecision,inability and silence” and has become an object of unforeseen “sarcasm and ridicule”,they said.

While they launched a broadside against the government’s leadership,both BJP leaders skirted the leadership issue in the NDA and said “an appropriate decision will be taken at an appropriate time”.

Swaraj stressed that the BJP Parliamentary Board will take a decision on “whether to project a leader” and “whom to project” in consultation with NDA partners. She also did not rule out BJP patriarch L K Advani’s name from being under consideration saying “we have not ruled out anyone” because all potential names will be considered by the parliamentary board.

The BJP also patted its back as it pointed out how it had handed over a “booming economy” to the UPA in 2004 and blamed the “policy paralysis” of UPA-2 for “damage” to the country.

Highlighting unprecedented price rise,slowing investment,setback to employment generation,weakening rupee,setback to “the success stories such as telecom,power,national highways,rural roads,sea ports” among others during UPA-2,both leaders claimed that “the principal achievement of the UPA appears to be that it has completed four years in office. History will not judge the UPA government by the number of years in power. It will make a very harsh judgement due to the damage the UPA has inflicted on the country”.

Asserting that corruption was the single most important factor leading to the prevailing gloom in the country,they also hit out at the Prime Minister alleging that the PMO had interfered in the CBI investigation into the coal blocks allotment controversy.

Both BJP leaders also attacked the Congress-led UPA for demolishing institutions and accused the government of misusing the CBI to get the SP and BSP’s support for its survival.

“The UPA owes its survival to the CBI. The CBI’s policy is to help the UPA as a pliable investigating agency. Offences of the UPA and its allies are covered up. Vindictiveness is shown towards the opponents of the government. Parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj are managed through a carrot and stick policy followed by the CBI,” they alleged.

They also cast aspersions over the appointments in the Election Commission,the National Human Rights Commission and the CVC saying “some of the appointments that the UPA made are highly questionable” and voiced their objection to the appointment of outgoing defence secretary S K Sharma as the CAG.

“I won’t comment on the person. But in the government budget,the biggest expenditure is on defence. This could be the subject of auditing . Is it appropriate that the person behind those expenditures will himself be auditing those expenditures,” Arun Jaitley said,calling it a matter of “institutional conflict of interest”.

The BJP will “continue to expose the popular disappointment with the UPA across the country” and hopes to generate a momentum in its favour in the next elections,they said.

“Once the momentum is on our side,we are confident that results will be spectacularly on our side,” Jaitley said.