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Wednesday, Dec 22, 2004

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National

Government disintegrating: Vajpayee

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 21. The National Democratic Alliance chairman, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said today that the Manmohan Singh Government was "weakening and disintegrating" even as differences among the ruling coalition allies were coming out in the open.

Addressing the weekly meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs, Mr. Vajpayee said: "sarkar bikhar rahi hai" (the government is disintegrating). The party MPs should tell the people what was happening and how differences among the ruling allies were adversely affecting the Government's performance.

The BJP Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, told reporters later that Mr. Vajpayee referred to the rising prices and the increasing number of suicides by farmers to say that that the Government was not functioning.

Mr. Malhotra quoted Mr. Vajpayee as saying that there was misrepresentation of what was happening in Parliament. There was a campaign that the BJP was not allowing Parliament to function. This was not correct. "When we are prevented from saying what we want to say, it is natural that we protest," Mr. Vajpayee is reported to have said.

He added that the absence in Parliament of the Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, the day after a major railway accident, was the cause of disruption and adjournment of Parliament, not the BJP.

Several party MPs said that the Government had already indicated that it wanted to phase out the kerosene and cooking gas subsidies and not raise the minimum support price for foodgrains.

The Employment Guarantee Bill introduced in Parliament today was also criticised.

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