MUMBAI: The United Progressive Alliance Government is suffering from "policy paralysis" leading to a serious deterioration of the economic situation, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged in its economic resolution adopted here on Thursday.

After more than 19 months in power, the UPA's promises of generating more employment, eradicating poverty, ushering in economic reforms, keeping prices down and accelerating economic development remained unfulfilled.

Advantage wasted

Instead, the Congress-led government had frittered away the advantage of having come to power when economic fundamentals were strong, the BJP said. The Left parties were attacked for "dictating" economic policies whether on the sale of public sector undertakings, rate of interest on Employees' Provident Fund, creation of a pension authority or restructuring the banking sector.

"We have the strange spectacle of Cabinet decisions being put in cold storage because of Communist pressure," the resolution said.

The resolution was moved by the party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, and seconded by senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi. Several senior leaders, including Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley, spoke on various economic issues.

The resolution made it clear that the BJP opposed foreign direct investment in retail, saying that this would undo the four crores employed in this sector while allowing "cheap" imported goods, including agri-products, to be made available by multi-national super marts and food chains.

`Permit and licence raj'

The BJP alleged that the Congress had never been interested in economic reform as it had encouraged a "permit and licence raj" that had stifled enterprise and institutionalised corruption.

It strongly attacked the UPA for not properly implementing its own Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Bharat Nirman project.

When Rajnath Singh — who is to replace current party president L.K. Advani in a few days — got up to speak, the delegates applauded.

He demanded that interest on loans for farmers be lowered. He said that with farmers committing suicide, the Government needed to sit up and examine what had gone wrong

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