Casting serious aspersions on the UPA leadership, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said that to keep the economy on track the leadership needs to be “big hearted” and the Prime Minister needs to be a natural leader of a party. He listed three areas of concerns needing immediate attention if the nation has to grow - to tackle Pakistan's unfinished agenda on J&K, take on the Maoist menace and to address the long standing neglect of the Northeast region.
Jaitley, who was addressing the valedictory session of CII's Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday, said that it is imperative that the leadership remains above suspicion and stop abusing institutions like the CBI to pressurise “vulnerable allies (referring to the SP and the BSP) into submission, adding in the same vein that such agencies need to be “immunised”.
Emphasising on the need to have strong and decisive leadership at the helm of the nation's affairs, the BJP leader said that governance and its quality will, in the days to come, decide the speed of India's growth as well as its direction.
“leadership is the indicator of decision making and history is a harsh judge of what you did in office. It is also an indicator of clarity on policy making… leadership should have credibility. If it is dogged by suspicion for a large part of its tenure, then its credibility gets affected,” Jaitley noted.
Making repeated pointed references at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's style of governance, the Rajya Sabha MP said that the “present model (of governance in UPA) is somewhat faulty as the elected head of Government should ideally have the last word (in decision making). If the leader relies on others' opinions to take decisions, then it becomes a three-legged race”.
Speaking about the UPA's constant refrain about achieving 9 per cent growth, the leader of the Opposition in the Upper House said that for this to become a reality the Government should roll out a proper plan.
“Without a proper roadmap and parameters properly defined, such aspirational paradigms will not have any meaning”, he added, underlining the fact that “quality of governance” is a key factor in achieving the target.
At the end of the day, he said, what make a difference is that how well people benefited from the dispensation and not the policies that were being announced from time to time.
Addressing the concerns of the industry, Jaitley stressed that the investment environment in the country is facing serious security concerns which could impact the functioning of the industry sector.
“The investment environment faces threats from Pakistan's unfinished agenda on J&K. The Maoist menace is also affecting governance and the Northeast is another area of concern. The neglect of the area is genuine and connectivity to that area is an issue which needs to be addressed. We cannot give an impression of being a soft state and therefore the leadership should rise above the impression of working just to garner votes,” he elucidated.
The Rajya Sabha MP also called upon the need to analyse the reasons behind the UPA's failure to succeed in certain key sectors like power and telecom, which could have been success stories.
Referring to the NDA Government's efforts to consult all the political parties to draft the Electricity Bill 2003 which later became an Act, Jaitley said that during that very time when it appeared that the power sector would become a booming sector, it has now entered a crisis stage and may even become India's sub prime crisis.
The telecom sector, he added, instead of being a success story became the UPA's biggest concern. Questioning the Prime Minister's inability to step in to stop the rut in both the sectors, the BJP leader said that even the highways and the rural roads sectors are headed towards meeting the same fate.
He wanted to know why Rs 7 lakh crore worth of investments have been locked up, which had severely impacted the business sentiments.
In this scenario, Jaitley highlighted the significance of Parliamentary democracy, adding that consultations across party affiliations are needed to hammer out consensus on key issues.
“It is the duty of the Government to create an enabling environment for extended and frequent consultations,” he said.