PM’s speech insipid; Modi tears it to shreds
The contrast could not have been starker. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dished out yet another lacklustre address from the ramparts of Red Fort this Independence Day, Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's Election Campaign Committee chairman Narendra Modi delivered a rousing speech in Bhuj on the occasion. If Mr Modi went beyond extending good wishes to the people of his State and the country and took on the Prime Minister with gloves off, it was expected. After all, Mr Modi's speech was billed as a counter to Mr Singh's address to the nation and came in less than an hour of the Red Fort function. It must be said that the Prime Minister provided every reason to Mr Modi to tear into the text of his speech. Mr Singh reduced the significance of an occasion of national pride by singing paeans to the Congress's first family. Right in the beginning, he gushingly recalled the services of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but did not mention the stellar contribution that another Prime Minister, lal Bahadur Shastri, made to the country. He also did not mention the unparalleled role of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in shaping the India that we know today. Mr Modi's jibe that while he understands the compulsions of the Prime Minister in not recalling Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's contribution, he is flummoxed by the exclusion of Sardar Patel and Shastri, will have a hit a raw nerve in the Congress. The Prime Minister offered the Gujarat Chief Minister yet another chance to attack when he rendered platitudes at the Red Fort about relations with Pakistan. Since Pakistan has repeatedly breached the ceasefire agreement along the line of Control in recent weeks and killed our jawans, people had expected Mr Singh to forcefully respond. But he did not in his address, and it is clear that he does not want to vitiate his forthcoming meeting with Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York on the sidelines of a United Nations event. Mr Modi deftly referred to President Pranab Mukherjee's address on the eve of Independence Day in which the latter warned Pakistan that there is a limit to India's patience. The Gujarat Chief Minister wondered whether the Manmohan Singh regime had decided what that limit would be. The country too wants to know.
Mr Modi completely discredited the tall claims the Prime Minister proudly listed with regard to the various social welfare schemes the Union Government had undertaken. The Gujarat Chief Minister, expectedly, took special interest in panning the food security Ordinance, and laid bare, not through rhetoric but coherent logic, the lacunae in the proposed legislation. The Centre cannot brush aside the points he raised, because they are far too relevant to be given short shrift. Nor can it explain away, as the Prime Minister sought to do on August 15, its dismal record in managing the economy. Blaming global trends and saying all developing countries have slowed down, is a poor defence, because the Manmohan Singh regime has pulled down growth from a high of more than nine per cent to a pathetic five per cent by its policy paralysis.
While the Prime Minister dutifully read out what he considers are ‘achievements', he failed to even once mention the menace of corruption that has engulfed his Government. Here again Mr Modi got an opportunity to refer to Mr Mukherjee's address in which the President had spoken about rising graft and the need to combat it. The Gujarat Chief Minister ridiculed the Prime Minister for glossing over this important bit in the Red Fort speech. Given that this was perhaps Mr Singh's last speech from the Red Fort as Prime Minister, he could have shown some spine as a parting shot. Sadly, Mr Singh did not.