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BJP TODAY

September 16--30, 2004 - Vol. 13, No. 18

Born in chaos, Blundering in chaos UPA Governments first 100 days
By Our special Correspondent

BJP SpokespersonShri Yashwant Sinha has described the first 100 days of the Manmohan Singh Government as "born in chaos, bundering in chaos" The following is the text of his statement on Aug. 31.

The Congress-led UPA government has completed 100 days. The chaotic conditions which marked its birth have bedeviled its first 100 days. All indications are that it will continue to blunder along in chaos for as long as it lives.

It took an unprecedented one week for the UPA to form the government. A well-orchestrated drama was enacted around Smt. Sonia Gandhi's last-minute decision not to be sworn in as Prime Minister. Congressmen compared her to the Buddha and the Mahatma, but within a couple of weeks of this act of "renunciation" anointed herself as the chairperson of the so-called National Advisory Council with cabinet rank.

The BJP challenges the Congress leadership to present before the nation a report card of its government's achievements in this period. It would paint a very dismal picture, indeed. For these are some of the government's main "achievements":

On the economic front:

  • 100 per cent rise in inflation in 100 days, burdening the "aam aadmi" (common man) with a steep increase in the prices of all essential goods;
  • Complete failure on the legislative front with not a single new bill having been introduced in the first 100 days;
  • Betrayal of the promise to launch, within the first 100 days, an Employment Guarantee Scheme with assured employment for at least 100 days in a year to at least one person in every BPL family;
  • Sell-out of the interests of Indian kisans at the WTO meet in Geneva;
  • Suicide by nearly 400 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and other States after the UPA government took office.
  • Abandoning or marginalizing several major development initiatives of the NDA government, and renaming of some schemes after the "Dynasty".
  • Not a single official meeting with the opposition on any issue in the first 100 days.

On the political front:

  • The Prime Minister, who talks about a code of conduct for political parties, continues to defend the criminalisation of the Union government (which has happened for the first time since Independence with the inclusion of tainted ministers);
  • This is the first government since Independence, in which the Prime Minister is not his own master. Indeed, Dr. Manmohan Singh is so powerless that he seems to neither control his own ministers nor his party's chief ministers. At the recent AICC meet, short of booing him out, delegates made it very clear to Dr. Manmohan Singh that they see him as just another ordinary Congressman.
  • The AICC session itself was a well-choreographed attempt by sycophants to send out the message that "India is Dynasty and Dynasty is India."
  • Infighting among partners started with the allocation of portfolios, which has not ceased till now. As late as last week, Shri Laloo Prasad Yadav, who had stoutly opposed the Railway Ministry being given to Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, said, "If I am given the Home Ministry, I don't mind Paswan being made the Railway Minister."
  • Laloo Prasad Yadav has called Paswan's party "aparadhiyon ki toli" (a gang of criminals), whereas Paswan has demanded the ouster of tainted ministers belonging to the RJD.
  • TRS leader Shri Srinivas Rao continues to remain a minister in the Union government without a portfolio. Meanwhile, the cracks in the TRS-Congress alliance in Andhra Pradesh have grown into a wide schism.
  • Shri Jagdish Tytler remains without work in the External Affairs ministry.
  • Not a day passes without the Left parties criticizing the government on some policy issue or the other, even though their "bite" has only remained a "sound byte" so far.
  • In an unprecedented affront to the Constitution, the Congress Chief Minister of Punjab has annulled the river water agreement with neighbouring states without so much as informing, much less consulting, the Prime Minister.
  • Similarly, the Chief Minister of Manipur has openly defied the Centre and got a resolution passed in the State Assembly for the scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Provisions Act.
  • Even though Manipur has been in turmoil for nearly two months now, the Union Home Minister has found no time to visit the state so far. After much avoidable damage has already taken place, he has now announced that he would visit Manipur on September 5.
  • Large parts of Bihar and Assam were inundated by floods, but the RJD and Congress governments there have completely failed in organizing relief and rehabilitation to the victims. On the contrary, the Bihar government's response to the agitating flood victims was to order police firing on them, in which four persons were killed.

On the National Security front:

  • Doubling of infiltration of Pak-trained terrorists into Jammu & Kashmir, as per the statement of the Army Chief himself;
  • Minister of State for Home, Shri Shriprakash Jaiswal admitting in Parliament that there are as many as 1.2 crore Bangladeshi infiltrators in India, the Prime Minister denying it the very next day in Guwahati, and thereafter the minister disowning his own words.
  • Steps taken to repeal POTA, utterly disregarding the continuing menace of terrorism in many parts of the country.
  • The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh has unilaterally lifted the ban on the People's War Group, disregarding the menace that PWG - and naxalism in general - poses to internal security in several parts of the country. No wonder, Dr. Jayalalithaa, chief minister of neighbouring Tamil Nadu, criticized the Centre for its failure to advise the AP government against this short-sighted step.
  • In Assam, ULFA extremists, aided and abetted by the ISI, are striking with abandon. On Independence Day, they massacred 15 innocent women and children in Assam.
  • No new initiative on the foreign policy front in the first 100 days. Indeed, the new government began its work on this front with a number of embarrassing blunders. Meanwhile, there is still no sign of the release of Indian hostages in Iraq.

Confrontation with the opposition

While the government is least bothered about governance, it is hyperactive as far as confrontation with the opposition is concerned. Governors appointed by the NDA government were summarily sacked and the action was defended on "ideological" reasons. The HRD Minister, egged on by the Communists, launched a campaign for "re-falsification" of history text books prepared by NCERT. Now, he has taken his campaign of vendetta to a shocking level by asking UNESCO to withhold the award that the world body had conferred upon Dr. J.S. Rajput, the former NCERT chief.

The HRD minister deliberately chose not to invite the BJP for an official conference on minority education and arrogantly defended his decision on "ideological" grounds. Later, he shocked the nation by giving an open call for purging government officers and employees who, in his eyes, were sympathetic to the RSS-BJP ideology. Obviously, all this was done with an eye on consolidating the minority vote-bank with a pseudo advocacy of secularism.
The government's confrontationist attitude towards the opposition reached a high-point in August with three shocking actions:

1) Insult to a National Hero like Veer Savarkar by ordering the removal of his plaque at the Cellular Jail in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

2) Insult to the National Flag by plotting the imprisonment of Uma Bharati in a blatantly false and politically motivated case in Hubli, in which her sole "crime" was defence of the citizens' right to hoise the Tricolour at a public place on August 15 and January 26.

3) The Prime Minister's impolite behavior with NDA leaders, when he refused to even accept a memorandum from them.