Anti incumbency factor to affect Congress adverse: Jaitley

Dehradun, Feb 18 (UNI) BJP National General Secretary Arun Jaitley today said the anti-incumbency factor will have a decisive bearing on the result of Uttarakhand Assembly election.

Talking to newspersons just three days ahead of Assembly election in the state, he said the results of Uttarakhand and Punjab would reveal public opinion on the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.

Mr Jaitley said there were three main reasons for anti-incumbency towards UPA : inflation, national security and minority appeasement policy. " Despite the Prime Minister being an expert economist, the economic management of the UPA government has been the worst,'' Mr Jaitley said farmers were forced to take recourse to suicides and the general public had to pay more on essential commodities.

He said at the time of development government considered rich people and when it came to imposing burden it was the poor people.

Commenting on the GDP growth the BJP leader said it was not due to the government policy but entrepreneurs.

Mr Jaitley said the second reason for rising anti-incumbency factor was the way UPA government dealt with national security. He said it has failed to curb terrorist influx and increased activities of the Maoists and ULFA. ''The Congress is looking at the national security in the context of vote bank politics which is dangerous,'' he said. '' The minority appeasement policy it is following is the third factor,'' he said adding constitution of the Sacchar Committee and reservation policy based on caste would spell doom for the UPA government and Congress government in the state.

Taking a dig at the Congress Government in the state, Mr Jaitley said it has failed to carry out balanced development in the state. Many areas have been left undeveloped. Instead the Congress leadership has been busy following the tradition of providing office-of-profit to its leaders. ' 'Search for office was higher than a desire for public service,'' he said adding the BJP would reap the benefit of anti-incumbency against Congress and emerge victorious with a large majority in the Assembly elections.

When asked about the possibility of rebel candidates affecting the result against official candidates, Mr Jaitley said his party has few of them to be worried about. ''But congress will have to face more of their rebels on the one hand and 'others' on the other hand as this factor always split the vote of the ruling party.

The 'others' play a significant role in small assemblies,'' he said. Answering the query on BJP being termed as 'a friendly opposition' Mr Jaitley said ''It is a sadistic pleasure in the use of the adjective. It will be clear after election result that the allegation was true or fictitious'' he said.

UNI