Press Statement issued by BJP National Spokesperson and MP,
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad

The stark truth about the four years of the Congress-led UPA government is its failure on all fronts, compounded by its betrayal of the aam aadmi, in whose name the Congress party had sought votes in the 2004 parliamentary elections. This betrayal will be most starkly seen in two contrasting realities: even as the ministers and leaders of the constituent and supporting parties of the UPA help themselves to a grand dinner at 10 Janpath tonight, crores of ordinary Indian families will be eating less than their normal meager intake because skyrocketing prices have ‘eaten into’ the per capita food consumption of both poor and middle-class Indians.

Food and Economic Security: The UPA government’s failure to check spiraling inflation, which is a mass-robber of the paltry earnings of the common people, has imperiled their economic and food security. The United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (Unicef) reported last week that that nearly 10 crore additional people around the globe, including a significant number of Indians, are at risk of malnutrition due to skyrocketing food prices. Specifically, UNICEF warned that more than 15 lakh additional children in India are at risk of becoming malnourished because of rising food prices, adding that, even before the current crisis, almost half of all Indian children showed signs of stunted growth. The Prime Minister’s ‘Report to the People’ makes no mention of what the U.N. body has called an "emergency of enormous proportions" and a "silent tsunami."

Price rise has not only hit the poor but also the urban middle classes, who now have to pay more by way of taxes, for house loans, education of their children, healthcare of their family members, and electricity and power, both of which have become more scarce than before. Indeed, scarcities and shortages are synonymous with the Congress rule, which is yet again proved by the fact that the government has decided not to provide fresh LPG connections.

It need to be noted that in the last four years about 22,000 farmers have committed suicide because of farm distress. The tragedy of farmers in Maharashtra continues unabated in spite of packages of the Prime Minister which has been implemented in a callous and indifferent manner leading to further misery of the farmers. The SEZ scheme is being implemented in a manner so as to create new zamindars.

National Security: The four-year track record of the UPA government in the area of national security is nothing short of shameful. Here is a terrorist-friendly government that has endangered India’s national security as a matter of policy to achieve vote-bank security. It took perverse pride in proclaiming that its first major decision after assuming office in 2004 was to disarm the law-enforcement machinery of a potent anti-terror law by repealing POTA. The Supreme Court, while striking down the IMDT Act as unconstitutional, has described large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh as “external aggression” and directed the government to take effective measures to counter it. The UPA government has not only flouted this directive, but the Prime Minister, Congress president and the Assam Chief Minister have tacitly assured protection to the illegal immigrants. The Supreme Court had to intervene again to quash the directive design to flout the order of the Court with some very hard comments.

The UPA government has also shown contempt to the Supreme Court by refusing to act on its verdict of death sentence to Mohammed Afzal, the prime convict in the case of the terrorist attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001. Now the Congress party’s politics of minorityism has acquired a distinctly anti-national hue with Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil seeking protection for Mohammad Afzal by invoking his own government’s plea to Pakistan for clemency for Sarabjit Singh. The Home Minister by this Statement has given Pakistan an opportunity to intervene in India’s internal affairs that too on question of national security.

During NDA the security forces and the government were tough on the terrorist. From 1999 to 2003, the average killing of terrorist in the entire country by the security forces was 2500 approx which has come down under the UPA to 1200 approx i.e. all most half.

The Vajpayee government’s decision to make India a nuclear weapons power in 1998 was one of the greatest achievements of our country. It strengthened our national security like no other measure had done before. It also greatly added to our national pride and enhanced India’s prestige and profile internationally. The UPA government has sought to undo this historic achievement by entering into an unequal treaty with the United States, which weakens India’s strategic defense and compromises our sovereignty. Shockingly, albeit unsurprisingly, the UPA government did not even commemorate the tenth anniversary of Pokharan II earlier this month.

Criminalisation of central government: The UPA regime has disgraced itself by rewarding criminals with ministerial posts at the Centre. One of its cabinet ministers was chargesheeted in a case of mass murder and became an absconder. Another minister was censured by a commission of enquiry that probed the 1984 genocide of Sikhs. Some other senior Ministers are facing trial in cases of misappropriation of public money. The Prime Minister had inducted these and several others into his council of ministers, knowing fully well that they were tainted by charges of criminalization.

Devaluation of democratic institutions: The Congress party is always known for its scant respect for democratic institutions. Nevertheless, never in the past had India seen such comprehensive devaluation of institutions as has happened in the past four years. Examples are: nomination of a tainted person to the Election Commission, misuse of the CBI (most glaringly seen in the blatant manner in which the government protected Ottavio Quattrocchi, the prime accused in the Bofors scandal), misuse of the office of Governor to secure partisan political benefit (as seen in Bihar, where the imposition of the President’s Rule in 2005 (?) was declared illegal by the Supreme Court). In spite of serious reprimand from the Supreme Court the UPA government again imposed President rule in Goa and Nagaland for blatant political consideration and lastly the misuse of Parliamentary majority to promote vindictive politics (as seen in the law passed by the UPA government to terminate the services of the AIIMS director, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court). Even the Election Commission was not spared when one Election Commissioner with known proximity to the Congress proved by evidence was appointed to the high office in disregard of all the norms.

The worst case of institutional devaluation has been that of the office of Prime Minister. For the first time since Independence, India has a nominated Prime Minister who is also a nominal Prime Minister, since the real political authority is wielded by the occupant of 10 Janpath and not by the occupant of 7 Race Course Road. The “sacrifice” drama enacted in May 2004 has now been clearly seen for what it was: as a drama. The Congress president and UPA chairperson exercises more power than the Prime Minister, without any accountability to Parliament. In spite of being the Prime Minister he has not chosen to face the election and get elected.

Today the situation is such that Dr. Manmohan Singh has no control whatsoever over his government or his ministerial colleagues, including those belonging to the Congress party. They openly ignore and even defy his authority. Senior bureaucrats, including those in charge of national security, routinely report to 10 Janpath and take instructions from there.

Normally, a non-performing Prime Minister becomes lame-duck in the last year of his tenure. For the first time, India has seen a Prime Minister who is lame-duck from the very beginning. A government headed by such a weak Prime Minister is doomed to be shown the exit door by the people whenever parliamentary elections are held.

NDA Coalition vs. UPA Cabal: In the last four years, the UPA has repeatedly shown itself to be less of a coalition and more of a squabbling cabal of opportunist parties. This is in sharp contrast to the achievement of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who demonstrated how to run a smooth and stable coalition government by setting an example of ‘Coalition Dharma’

The worst opportunists are the CPI(M)-led Left parties, which oppose every policy of the government and yet continue to lend critical outside support to it. All this is being done ostensibly to defend secularism, However, the people have seen that the real purpose of the Congress-Communist pact is to somehow keep the BJP out. Now that the last year of the UPA government has begun, the people are certain to teach both the Congress and Communists a befitting lesson in the next parliamentary elections.

Congress party’s shrinking political base: The last four years have seen steady shrinking of the political base of the Congress party, although it is heading a government at the Centre. Barring manipulated victory in Goa and Assam, it has lost all the state assembly elections held since May 2004. It will suffer yet another defeat when results of the assembly elections in Karnataka are declared on May 25. In the same period, the BJP has performed much better than the Congress. Our party is certain to reinforce this winning performance in Karnataka.

The BJP and the NDA, under the leadership of Shri L.K. Advani, will continue a relentless mass campaign to expose the failures and betrayals of the UPA government. The countdown for Elections 2009 has well and truly begun. It is sure to end with victory to the BJP and the NDA.

(Shyam Jaju)
Headquarter-in-charge