India needs strong leadership: BJP

New Delhi, Jun 3: Asserting that India requires a strong leadership, a decisive government, good politics and a significant emphasis on national security, the BJP today said the party under the leadership of L K Advani should be ready to take on this challenge in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. A strong BJP is sure to attract strong allies to the NDA which had accepted to work under Mr Advani's leadership and the party will prepare itself in the coming months for assuming the responsibilities of governance, said the political resolution adopted at the BJP National Executive last night which was released here today.

The party was of the view that it had an obvious advantage in the coming elections and the UPA government suffered from a 'leadership inadequacy' and the political standing of the PM was 'negligible'. The over-reliance of the Congress Party on 'one family' and its successors was proving to be detrimental to the creation of mass base leadership. The Left parties had stood exposed and the events taking place in Nandigram had eroded their political strength and credibility.

In such a situation the challenge before the BJP-led NDA to provide alternative leadership to the nation becomes imminent, the resolution observed. The party stated the four-year Congress-led UPA Government had been a 'disaster' and the alliance was running out of steam losing every major elections in the last two years. The administration had inflicted heavy economic atrocities on its citizens by its failure to curb price rise and improve the condition of the Indian farmer. It has seriously compromised internal security. India's strategic position in the neighbourhood has been adversely affected.

It referred to Karnataka where the lotus had bloomed and the victory had marked BJP's pan-Indian presence. The party's dream of establishing its rule down the Vindhyas had been realised. The wins in Gujarat and Karnataka were also a positive vote where the voters faced with the threat of terror were finding the policies of the BJP more acceptable. The Executive recorded its appreciation of the workers and leaders of Karnataka making the BJP a frontrunner for the next General Elections.

The ruling UPA had hardly tasted any electoral success in the last two years be it Bihar, Punjab, Uttarakhand, UP, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat or Meghalaya. The Congress Party had been defeated in rapid succession and most of these States were won by the BJP and its NDA partners. The failure of Congress was basically its inability to provide good governance for its UPA regime.

Observing that the policy contradictions in the UPA and its Left allies had resulted in 'self inflicted paralysis' of the economic decision-making process, the party accused the Left of consistently attempting to influence the policy. From within they supported the government in Parliament while they were donning a facade of Opposition outside, the BJP alleged.

The ruling coalition's priority thus was not the economic management of the country but its own survival. The result is a self-inflicted paralysis. All earlier governments since 1991 made economic reforms an art of the possible. This government has made the absence of any economic reform or decision-making as the art of its survival and longevity. The Prime Minister and his economic managers firmly believe that the best way to avert a political controversy is by taking no decisions. The result has been that the momentum of economic growth that was achieved in the six years of NDA rule has now been lost.

Touching upon agriculture, the BJP said the prices of food grains and essential commodities were on the rise but at the same time the plight of the Indian farmer continued to worsen. Farmers continued to commit suicides as the returns on agriculture were inadequate. The urban-rural divide had worsened. The party said the 'the compromise with internal security' was a key area of concern. The edifice of India's internal security was cracking. Terrorism is an enemy of the nation and it is important to know the danger before destroying it. Intelligence and investigations are the instruments of identifying the terrorist.

Alleging that the UPA's 'soft approach' had created a strange situation where the terrorists were ahead of the security apparatus, the party noted that the ability of making inroads into terrorist networks was inadequate for helping the country to generate advance warning prior to any major attacks.

The BJP ridiculed Home Minister Shivraj Patil's reactions as grossly inadequate and, often, comic. His remarks underscored the lack of resolve in fighting terrorism. It took Prime Minister Manmohan Singh four years to realize that India needs a Federal Investigation Agency to fight terrorism and terror should be treated as a federal crime. He doesn't realise that the transfer of the investigation from the State police to the Federal police would be completely inadequate if they were to be denied additional powers to carry on investigations.

The menace of terrorism required a multi-pronged hard approach whereby no mercy should be shown for the perpetrators of terrorist crimes. India will have to bring back POTA, strengthen internal and external intelligence network.

Touching upon Maoist violence, the party said it was a reality that these forces had large local logistical support within the country and there was feeble response by the law enforcing agencies often leading to encouragement of the extremists. The large-scale illegal infiltration from Bangladesh had made India's security more fragile with some illegal immigrants making up the 'sleeper cells' at several places in India. "Yet, the UPA prefers to consider them as Economic Refugees", the resolution chided.

Referring to recent serial blasts in Jaipur, the party said the mood of the nation was 'Enough is Enough' and the voter backlash in the recent elections was reflecting the minds of the people.

On the 'callous neglect' of the North Eastern states the party noted that insurgency had not been curtailed and the UPA Government had run out of ideas in dealing with problems. The resolution also said that NDA-ruled states would fight the UPA's discrimination and not allow the victimisation of people of the area for not voting for the ruling alliance.

UNI