In one of the sharpest attacks against Manmohan Singh in recent times, leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha — Arun Jaitley — on Saturday said, “India cannot afford a non-politician as a Prime Minister and Prime Ministership is not like employment. Prime Ministers must be the natural leaders of the country,” he said. He also charged that the world’s largest democracy cannot run on the pattern of corporates.
“India must now realise that this experiment, where you can have corporates running in this manner, you can’t have the world’s largest democracy run like that,” Jaitley said at the FICCI Annual General Meeting. He said that Prime Ministers are never judged by the number of years they remain in office, but by the decisions they make. “Prime Ministership is not like an employment. Prime Ministers must always have the last word in a Government,” he added. “A PM can never look helpless. He can never go back with the feeling that I’m not being allowed to deliver,” he said.
In a veiled attack on Congress’ populist schemes in the Centre and different States, Jaitley said that the results of the recent Assembly elections indicate that good governance can only make parties win electoral battles. He further said that recent political developments have demolished the myth that good governance and credible decision-making would not get you the votes and yojanas or schemes will.
The BJP has been critical of reckless spending by the UPA, without putting in enough checks on Government schemes. The BJP was particularly worried about the electoral fallout of the several schemes announced by the Ashok Gehlot Government in Rajasthan on the eve of the elections. The Congress was washed out there.
“When the image of a political party is one where decision-making is seen as corrupt, no amount of jingoism will help,” Jaitley said. He cited example of the spectrum scam saying the Government had the option of stopping the allocation of spectrum but it chose not to and the spiral effect of this inaction was the cancellation of licences, confiscation of investment and arrest of Minister. “The same story was repeated in coal allocation,” he added. Calling for restoring and reviving the investment cycle, Jaitley said, “This whole movement will have to stop... All this is hurting Brand India, the image of India, the investment image of India and that’s where we need a PM who says this is not acceptable.”