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Gross mismanagement: BJP

Neena Vyas

Please spare the nation, Rudy
tells UPA
“Why this disaster on the food front?”

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday hit out at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for the double-digit inflation and creating a situation “in which growth has to take the back seat and fighting inflation becomes the top priority.”

Party president Rajnath Singh said he had warned that the country would inevitably witness double-digit inflation, which had not been seen for over a decade. Charging the UPA with “gross economic mismanagement,” he said this kind of inflation was last seen between 1992 and 1995, again under a Congress regime.

BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the “illustrious team of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister has broken its own records set during the time when the current Prime Minister was the Finance Minister and the present Finance Minister was the Commerce Minister in the Narasimha Rao government.”

Mr. Rudy said his appeal to the UPA was: “Please spare the nation.” Two years ago, while presenting the budget, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram reassured the nation, saying Main hoon na (I am there, you can bank on me), but now the BJP would like to ask him where he was (Tum ab kahan ho?)

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was talking about 9 per cent growth rate and the Finance Minister about increased revenue collection, the Agriculture Minister was boasting of a record harvest. “Then why this disaster on the food front; why this inflation in a situation where everything should be plentiful,” Mr. Rudy asked.

Mr. Singh said “unlike the Left parties, which are more concerned about safeguarding China’s interests than fighting people’s causes like spiralling prices,” the BJP considered inflation as a main cause for worry, as it affected each and every person in the country. “This means the funeral of the government is not far away,” Mr. Rudy said.

JD(U)’s demand

The Janata Dal (United) has demanded the resignation of Mr. Chidambaram for the “totally fractured” economic management by the UPA.

In a joint statement, several JD(U) office-bearers demanded that the government issue a white paper on economic policy.

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