The Hindu : National : President's address has no plan of action: BJP chief

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 08, 2004

National

National

President's address has no plan of action: BJP chief

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 7. "The President's address is nothing but a repetition of the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) Common Minimum Programme and has completely failed to place before the nation any concrete programme or plan of action for the coming year," the Bharatiya Janata Party national president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, said here today.

Mr. Naidu said the address was a "jumble of grandiose policies and schemes," with no indication whatsoever of where the funds would come from. There was not even a hint of a strategy for resources generation.

Talking to the media, Mr. Naidu said the Government's claim on commitment to "fiscal discipline" did not pass muster in view of the "tug of war" going on among the UPA constituents and the supporting parties on policy issues.

What was disturbing was that many national projects for rural connectivity, supply of subsidised foodgrains to the poorest of the poor and the golden quadrilateral initiated by the Vajpayee Government were not mentioned in the address.

He said the Government's claim that the recent election verdict was a mandate for "secular forces" was hollow as the parties which were either part of the Government or were giving outside support did not contest on a common platform. They fought against one another and no single party or any pre-election alliance got the majority. It was unfortunate that the Government "misused" the President's address for "spreading falsehood" about the nature and essence of the people's verdict.

The address did not even mention the menace of cross-border terrorism which had so far claimed 60,000 lives. The killing of 33 Border Security Force jawans and members of their families in Jammu and Kashmir recently and the attack on the residence of Mirwaiz Omar Farooq in Srinagar were reminders of the continuing threat of terrorist and separatist forces. He warned against compromising the paramount task of fighting terrorism and separatism for the sake of vote bank.

The BJP leader said the Government's claim to fight corruption and its silence on criminalisation of politics were hypocritical. For the first time since Independence the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had rewarded several persons chargesheeted in "heinous crimes" with a place in the Council of Ministers.

When newsmen pointed out that even the BJP-led NDA Government accommodated such persons, he said that they were all charge-sheeted for participating in political agitations unlike these "tainted Ministers" chargesheeted for criminal activities. The BJP would continue its campaign against "tainted Ministers" but would not stall the proceedings of Parliament as the Congress did in the previous House, he said.

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