The Hindu : National : Throw out UPA, expand NDA: BJP

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Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
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National

Throw out UPA, expand NDA: BJP

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: The twin political message that came out loud and strong from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s three-day conclave was that it was time for the people to throw out the United Progressive Alliance and to ensure this, the expansion of the National Democratic Alliance was necessary.

While the five-page political resolution drafted and moved by general secretary Arun Jaitley focussed on the first part, a strategy plan outlined by Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha Sushma Swaraj emphasised the need for the BJP to seek and make allies ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections. She said the days of single-party rule were over and coalition politics were here to stay for at least another decade.

BJP president Rajnath Singh expressed the hope that the reservation for women in the party would bring “stree shakti” (woman power) to the aid of the party and help it win the election.

In his speech, Mr. Jaitley focussed on the UPA’s “repugnant” model of governance in which the Prime Minister was a “non-leader” and the person (an obvious reference to Congress president Sonia Gandhi) who wielded real power was not accountable to Parliament.

He said the impressive growth record of the last four years was the result of the “momentum” to the economy given by the previous NDA government. Of course, the “fast growth trajectory” left behind by the NDA government in 2004 was the result of not any previous “momentum” but the achievements of the Vajpayee government itself, he implied.

The resolution talked of a “sense of national drift” that now prevailed when the government was in the fourth year of office. He said its political strategy was based on divisive vote-bank politics — a reference to what the BJP has described as the UPA’s “minority appeasement” politics, with even terrorism linked to this.

“A sad commentary on the UPA’s approach … has been that it first convinces a section of the minority population that the anti-terrorism stance of the NDA is an attack on minorities.”

The repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was seen by the BJP as an instance of this “vote-bank politics.”

Mr. Jaitley made a strong attack on the Prime Minister. “Never has a Prime Minister made so negligible impact on policies. Never has a Prime Minister had such a negligible impact on the polity,” he said while attacking the UPA for giving the country such “weak leadership.”

The BJP’s charge was that the UPA did not have even a single achievement to show with its flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme mired in corruption. In short, it was time for the people to vote out the UPA.

But this, later Ms. Swaraj said, would be only possible if the BJP were to expand the NDA by seeking out new friends and by focussing on the 291 Lok Sabha seats the BJP had won one time or another over 13 years.

She asked all the State units to “get into election mode” as did the central party.

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