Describing the ten-year-old Congress-led Government as “a disaster” for the country, the BJP on Friday listed 22 charges against it. These included exercise of “authority without accountability” by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, “spineless” approach of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against “loot of public money,” and attempts of Congress party “to communalise” the discourse on terrorism.
The charge sheet accused the UPA Government of destruction of the Indian economy, decimating the value of the Rupee and failure to expedite infrastructure on “the Indo-Tibet border” despite 500 incidents of border violations by Chinese troops in the last two years.
“Manmohan Singh worked more like the CEO of a company where the Board was headed by Sonia Gandhi with Rahul Gandhi as her deputy,” said the 58-page charge sheet released by senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Prasad said the UPA had destroyed indigenous Defence production and even after 65 years of Independence 70 per cent of Defence equipment was imported.
“We do not even make pistols,” he said, referring to one of the proceedings of a standing committee on Defence.
Prasad said the UPA’s ten year regime was an “endless saga of scams,” and it was difficult to choose the major ones.
The BJP charge sheet lists at least ten alleged scams of Rs10,000 crore and more, including the 2G Spectrum, coal mines allocation, CWG, Air India, rotten food, ISRO-Devas and Defence land scam. Besides, it also listed many other scams like the Adarsh scam, cash-for-vote, Tatra truck, Vadra land deal, KG Basin oil scam and AgustaWestland helicopter scams.
The charge sheet accused the UPA of completely destroying the NDA-built economy when inflation was kept under 5 per cent and growth veered around 8.5 per cent “as stated” by none other than Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Economic Survey 2003-04.
“Now after ten years in power the Congress-led Government has brought the economy to a grinding halt at 4.6 per cent and squandered the opportunity to consolidate on the strengths acquired during the NDA rule,” it said.
The BJP blamed Congress president and vice-president for “exercising authority without accountability.” “In many instances wrongdoing and corruption had also their approval and consent,” it said.
While accusing the Gandhi family of exercising authority over the Prime Minister’s Office, the BJP lambasted Manmohan Singh for not standing up to the wrongdoing and corruption in his Government.
“Manmohan Singh made all compromises to remain in office. One does not come across a single case where he made any decisive intervention to contain loot of public money in a series of scams which became a defining feature of his Government which was the most corrupt since Independence,” it said.
On internal security, the BJP accused the Congress of “trying to communalise the discourse on terrorism” by attempting to project Muslims as victims of high-handed police action in the name of fighting terrorism.
“While wrongful arrests of individuals cannot be justified, portraying police actions as deliberately targeted against Muslims has communal overtones,” the charge sheet said. On the other hand, the BJP said several Congress leaders refused to identify Indian Mujahideen as a terrorist organization.
The BJP said the foreign policy of the UPA could not prevent immediate neighbours (Nepal, Sri lanka etc) from moving into the lap of China with little regard for India’s security concerns.
The charge sheet said the Government failed to provide every Indian with a unique identity card after the publication of the National Population Register in 2011.
“It has only left a legacy of suffering, agony, disappointment and hopelessness for people of India. We hope that the time for redemption has come,” the charge sheet said in its conclusion.