BJP releases chargesheet against UPA

New Delhi, May 22: Dubbing the UPA Government as a 'faceless, directionless and spineless' administration, the BJP said the three-year UPA rule at the Centre was a saga of compromises and failures endangering national sovereignty and security.

Releasing a 66-page 'charge sheet' titled 'UPA's three-years Aam Aadmi's tear years', BJP President Rajnath Singh said the ''soft policy'' of the government towards terrorism had allowed trans-national terrorist networks to take roots in and around the country. The abandonment of POTA without an alternative stringent law had emboldened terrorist organisations resulting in attacks in Ayodhya, Bangalore, Kashi, Delhi, Mumbai, Malgoan, onboard the Samjhauta Express and now in Hyderabad.

The delay in hanging of Mohammad Afzal in the Parliament attack case and the UPA seeking relief for Coimbatore blast kingpin Abdul Nasir Madhani sent wrong signals to the concerned quarters and demoralised security forces, he said.

The talks with Pakistan were 'terror centric' as long as the NDA was in the driver's seat but it soon became 'Kashmir centric' after the UPA regime headed by Manmohan Singh ascended to power, he said. The government was deliberately hiding details of the talks with Parliament and the people. ''Large scale migration of Hindu population was taking place in border areas and the government was not even willing to provide justice to displaced Kashmiri Pundits.

In Asom, the government had failed to protect the migrants.'' He said India did not even register its protest when China proclaimed the entire Arunachal Pradesh state as its territory. The UPA government even failed to renew a pact with Nepal, thereby missing an opportunity to deal with terrorist networks taking refuge in that country. The government was 'inactive' about the 'deteriorating developments' of all neighbouring countries -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, he alleged.

The Indo-US nuclear treaty, Mr Rajnath alleged, was a compromise of nuclear sovereignty and the government was working to undo the work done for the last 60 years by accepting to cap its strategic nuclear programme. The separation of military and civilian nuclear installations was unwarranted. The Prime Minister had misled the Parliament and it was now becoming clear that the statements made by US officials and letters of US legislators that their country would neither offer parity nor reciprocity to India under the deal.

The 'aam aadmi' (common man), through whom the UPA came to power was now bearing the burden of rising prices and increasing shortages of essential commodities. Essential commodities like wheat, rice, pulses, oil, vegetables and cement had adversely affected the average standard of living. '' They have reduced an economy of surpluses to an economy of scarcity'' , Mr Singh lamented.

The home loans which came down to six per cent interest, had doubled in three years of UPA rule and the growth had also slowed down. The petrol prices saw a hike of 58 per cent even after a 33 per cent fall in prices in the international market and 15 per cent fall in dollar prices.

He said over 5,000 farmers had committed suicides in the country and the UPA was yet to address the core issue of indebtedness. The government not only allowed private procurements but emptied the godowns and the result was that the wheat, edible oils, pulses and many other food items now have to be imported for the first time in eight years.

On the infrastructure side, there was a slow down of infrastructure projects initiated by the NDA, be it roads or energy.

The ambitious river linking had been shelved while the SEZ policy had been diluted and permission was given for hundreds of projects at a scandalous pace. The government was adamant to breach 'Ram Sethu' for Sethu Samudram Project and it would put both Tamil Nadu and Kerala states to bear the brunt of tsunami waves, he said.

Terming Dr Manmohan Singh as the 'weakest ever Prime Minister', the BJP President said 'he is a PM not in command'. Dr Singh dreaded to face people by refraining to contest the Lok Sabha seat and yet he was the first Prime Minister to make to make poverty a religion-centric tool by his 'first rights to Muslims' theory.

He said the BJP would take the 'aam aadmi' in their fight againt the anti-people, anti-labour and anti-farmer polcies of the UPA government in and outside Parliament.

UNI