BJP lists UPA's failures in four years

New Delhi, May 21: The BJP today said the UPA government had in its four-year regime failed to contain inflation, triggered an agricultural crisis and increase in incidents of terror and put brakes on infastructure development which all hurt the aam aadmi.

Making an assessment of the work done by the UPA which is completing four years in office tomorrow, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the party would come out with its structured formal response on the four years of misrule shortly. The ruling coalition spared no effort to let off Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian fugitive and prime suspect in the Bofors kickback scandal while new scandals concerning the Special Economic Zones rocked almost all parts of the country, he alleged.

He said the political base of the ruling coalition had shrunk during the last four years with the UPA and its allies relegated to back seat in the key states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The Congress had lost in the states of Kerala, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Meghalaya where it was in power during the last four years. The party fared badly in Jharkhand despite winning in the 2004 Parliament elections.

Agriculture was one sector which had affected both farmers and consumers shaking the very basis of food security. The country had turned to food imports for its grain, pulses and edible oil requirements, he said.

The Government should provide foodgrains to the needy sections through Public Distribution Scheme. Unless the government provides fair returns for the farmers produce as per the recommendations of the noted agriculture expert Dr M S Swaminathan and supply the produce to the consumers, the nation can never surmount the food deficit, he said, adding that the country now had a situation where farmers were 'dying and the consumers were looted'.

One of the biggest failures of the UPA government was the inablility to complete the remaining 10 per cent work on the Golden Quadrilateral Express Highway in its four years in office.

Asked about Rajasthan Governor S K Singh's comments that crackdown of the State Government against Bangladeshi illegal migrants was dictated by the 'ideological factors' of the BJP government, Mr Javadekar said it was a matter of surprise that the Union Home Minister and the State Governor were both talking without any basis.

"They should go through the directives issued to the state government before they comment", he said.

While declining to comment on Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's comments that the Bangladeshi migrants were 'guests', Mr Javadekar said it would not be surprising that the Congress would deem every illegal migrant from Bangladesh as a guest but a writer like Taslima Nasreen who was living in West Bengal with valid papers is bundled out of the country for vote bank 'appeasement'.

UNI