Press Statement by
Shri Lal Krishna Advani
Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha

Hyderabad

As the Congress-led UPA government approaches the end of its fourth year in office, its track record has become an advertisement of its failure on almost all fronts.

The Congress party sought votes in the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2004 in the name of the Aam Aadmi. Four years later, its betrayal of the common man is most glaringly evident in its total failure to check skyrocketing prices of all the essential commodities and services. Each passing week sees further increase in the rate of inflation, which now stands at a four-year high of 7.83 per cent. Many economists have noted that the official inflation rate does not fully reflect the true extent of the rise in prices that has taken place under the UPA rule. This is evident, for example, from the manner in which the government’s management of the oil pool account is going haywire.

As far as the common man is concerned, inflation is a silent killer. It has eroded the already meager earnings of the poor and middle classes, forcing them to cut down on the consumption of basic items such as milk, vegetables, pulses and other sources of protein. Thus, millions of people have been pushed below the poverty line and those that are already BPL families have become further pauperized.

In the same four years of the UPA government, India’s super-rich families, which constitute a tiny layer of our society, have become incredibly richer. According to one estimate, the earnings of 20 Kubers is today more than that of 30 crore Sudamas. I am confident that, whenever the parliamentary elections are held, the Aam Aadmi will teach a proper lesson to those who have betrayed his trust.

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If the UPA government’s failure to contain price rise is threatening Aam Aadmi’s economic security, its failure to contain terrorism is threatening India’s national security.

It is almost a year ago that Hyderabad was struck by two bomb blasts at Koti and Lumbini Park, in which 42 innocent persons were killed. I had come to the city to condemn these terrorist attacks and to show my sympathy to the families of victims. Four days ago, I visited Jaipur, where terrorists set off serial blasts at seven different places and killed nearly 70 innocent citizens.

I would like to mention three significant features of the rise of the terrorist menace under the UPA rule.

• Firstly, if we see the various places where terrorists have struck in the last four years — Delhi, Haryana (Samjhauta Express), Ayodhya, Varanasi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Malegaon, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Jammu, Jaipur, to name only a few — it is obvious that their geographical footprint has considerably expanded.

• Secondly, not a single case of terrorist attack has been fully investigated and culprits brought to justice in the UPA rule.

• Thirdly, in addition to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan in the west, we have witnessed a steady growth of cross-border terrorism from Bangladesh in the east. This is not unrelated to the total apathy, bordering on collusion, that the UPA government has displayed on the issue of large-scale infiltration of Bangladeshis. It is no wonder that one organization whose hand has been seen in most of the terrorist attacks during the past four years is Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI), based in Bangladesh.

It is the BJP’s charge that the UPA government’s weak approach to fighting terrorism is guided solely by vote-bank considerations. For its short-term electoral gains, the Congress party is making India pay a very heavy price in the form of the blood of innocent citizens.

This is another reason behind the people’s growing resolve to teach a proper lesson to the Congress party whenever the parliamentary elections are held.