The Congress-run UPA-II is the most hated Government India has ever seen since Independence, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.
launching a frontal attack on the Congress, which, he said, has lost all rights to rule, Modi said the time has come when the people of India will take account of all “its misdeeds and tear its roots apart”. He was addressing a BJP conference in Kolkata.
It was for the Congress leaders to find out why it was hated so much despite the sound backing it got from a section of the media and interest groups that it nurtured all these years, Modi thundered.
He reminded how the party defamed the whole nation by indulging in the CWG scam and added “the time has come when the people of India should start aspiring for a Congress-less country”.
He said it was not mere a “momentary anger on stray issues but a pure hatred” that was doing the UPA’s big brother in and the party would soon get a befitting reply for taking the electorate for a ride for so many years.
Modi pointed out that the Congress failed to perform even in the first three decades in power when it faced no resistance from any quarter. “There was literally no Opposition, active media or pro-active judiciary or for that matter herds of NGOs to challenge them. They had an open field to play but they failed to perform,” he said, adding the Congress had thrown open the national coffers for a loot.
Pooh-poohing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his non-acceptability in his own party, “let alone the country” Modi wondered how many Congressmen considered Singh as their leader.
“I would ask the friends from the media to ask 100 ground-level Congress workers who do they consider the leader of the country. I’m sure none of them would mention the name of the Prime Minister,” he said, wondering whether Singh had the right to lead a Government when “his own party members do not consider him as their leader”.
Taking a dig at the Congress inner circles for debating on who should be at the helm of affairs, the Gujarat Chief Minister said, “The Congress is debating on dual power centres in the party, but they are not going be anywhere near the power in near future. “They are talking of power centre, but where is powerIJ” he quipped amid thunderous applause.
Arguing that the scam-tainted outfit had lost all its rights to rule the country, Modi said performance and not lineage or other such criterion should be the yardstick of good governance.
Pointing out that times were changing in India, Modi insisted the electorate had started appreciating the importance of development. “The time has changed in the past one decade where the political parties have to engage the electorate in development politics rather than vote-bank politics,” the Chief Minister said, adding performance should be sole criterion for deciding the fate of a political outfit.
“People of India have seen a 50-year of Congress Government, they have also seen the Governance of BJP apart from the communists and other regional parties ruling in various States” he said, adding he had no doubt that “the people of India would choose the BJP after weighing up the performance of the respective parties”.
Earlier in the morning, Modi had lambasted the Centre for its discriminatory politics while addressing a special session of Bengal industry honchos. Carrying on the onslaught he accused the Government for “policy paralysis” particularly on issue relating to coal and power.
“This Government has no policy on coal and allowing the power units worth 30,000 MW to sit idle in the country as you cannot supply them with coal. Taking advantage the smaller countries are hiking coal prices for us and being a huge country we cannot impose ourselves,” he said, criticising India’s meek foreign policy.
Among others who spoke on the occasion were BJP Rajya Sabha member Chandan Mitra, Siddharthnath Singh, Bengal party chief Rahul Sinha and senior leader Tathagato Roy.
Earlier, addressing top businessmen at a separate function, Modi said the Centre was pushing the country towards a tumultuous future. He said the dispensation in the Capital had entered into a comatose state whence “the development related files take years to move as most of those at the helm are afraid to open them” lest the scam genie leapt out of the papers.