Cong-led UPA govt has failed on all fronts: Advani

Pune, Apr 22 (UNI) Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and senior BJP leader L K Advani today said the Congress-led UPA Government has failed on all fronts and its downslide was 'irreversible' even as the BJP is readying to set the National agenda once again.

Addressing a press conference here, the BJP leader said the position of the Congress is going to worsen further after the UP, Goa and Gujarat Assembly elections results are out.

He said the continuing farmer suicides, price rise, 'perverse'SEZ policy, internal security situation, three corruption scandals and cover ups in the Quattrocchi scandal, the Scorpene submarine scandal, the food-for-oil scandal in Iraq and corruption in SEZ approvals, failure to come up with a joint mechanism in dealing with terror, all these have dented the image of the government.

To a query about the tainted BJP MP Babaubhai Katara allegedly being involved in the human trafficking racket, Mr Advani said the BJP had already initiated appropriate action against him besides expelling him from the party. But the UPA had brought about criminalisation into government at the Centre with candidates having criminal records inducted into the Union Council of Ministers, he said.

He said the BJP had shown enough resilience and was on a comeback trail, pointing out that nine states were ruled by the BJP.

He said that would also be the deciding factor in the Presidential election as maximum numbers of MLA's were with the BJP.

To a query about SEZ, he said, ''BJP would not allow the old system to prevail,'' land for SEZ would not be acquired and the farmer would be adequately compensated, citing the Gujarat example where no farmer has opposed the move. Advani said the NDA government was a model government, about how it should be while the UPA government was an example of how things should not be.

On whether the local model in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) of NCP forming government with BJP support would be pursued at the national level, Advani said, ''It was NCP leader Sharad Pawar who said that his party had an open mind. But we in the NDA have had an happy experience with all coalition partner.'' However, Advani came down heavily on the Congress-led DF government in Maharshtra, saying that Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had no moral right to continue. The state has had no developmental work, no additional power generating plants were set up for the past 8 years and even the highways project was put on the back burner.

UNI