The Congress and the UPA Government on Sunday came under a blistering attack by the BJP, which accused them of rampant corruption and plundering public wealth. launching an all-out attack against the ruling dispensation, the leader of Opposition in lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj said that the Congress has already accepted its defeat and so now it is shying away from naming its prime ministerial candidate for the upcoming lok Sabha polls.
She ridiculed the claim of the Congress party that it was not its tradition to name the PM candidate and said a tradition is something which party leaders and workers are aware of, not something which they are reminded of at the last moment. “This is the same drama which we saw during the time of ‘inner voice’,” Swaraj said referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s decision not to become the Prime Minister after her party’s victory in 2004 lok Sabha polls.
“This is a party which hears the voice of conscience a bit too late and realises its tradition a bit too late. The truth is that the Congress is scared and refused to declare its leader fearing defeat. The battle will be between our visible leader and their invisible leader,” she said while tabling a political resolution on concluding day of BJP’s National Council meeting on Sunday.
The council unanimously adopted the resolution, which accused Rahul Gandhi of being equally responsible for all the ills and suffering in the country as the government worked under his control as well. The BJP leader alleged that “the top Congress leadership and the Manmohan Singh Government were responsible for slow economic growth, failure to check terrorism, vote bank politics and decline of constitutional institutions. “ In 2004, the BJP-led NDA government had left behind an economy growing at a robust 8.4 per cent which slowed down to 4.5 per cent under Manmohan Singh. His ministers have ‘looted’ the country while the PM blames constitutional watchdogs like CWG and CVC for the slump in the economy. We had given you a full glass but you have done the job of emptying it,” she said.
Deputy leader of Opposition in Rajya Sbha, Ravi Shankar Prasad too hit out at the Congress for being soft on corruption and illegal migration in bordering states of the country. He accused the Prime Minister of doing nothing for the state of Assam which he has been representing in the Rajya Sabha for the last 21 years.
“He has represented Assam for 21 years besides being the Prime Minister for ten years and the Finance Minister for five years. However, he never cared for development in the state which is also under the grip of illegal migrants,” Prasad said. He also criticized the Congress for launching a ‘malicious campaign’ against Narendra Modi despite the Supreme Court appointed SIT and the court giving him a clean chit in the Gujarat riots.
The BJP condemned what it called the lack of security by the Bihar Government to Modi’s rally in Patna on October 27 in which six blasts took place. “Now the terrorists are striking at political rallies also. The terror attack on the Hunkar rally only shows that terrorists can strike at will,” the resolution said.