Budget national disappointment, mockery of reforms: BJP

New Delhi, May 4 (UNI) Terming the budget as 'national disappointment', the Opposition BJP today charged the UPA government with making a mockery of reforms as well as suffering from complete paralysis in economic decision making.

Participating in the disussion over the Appropriation (No 2) Bill and the Finance Bill, 2007, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the UPA government has been paralysed by two letter writers--UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat-- both of whom were caught in a strange political trap.

In their bid to influence the policies of the government, control power and even occupy the opposition's space they obstruct the government frequently by their letters, Mr Jaitley said and observed ''It is a government halted by correspondence. Be it disinvestments, FDI poliy, SEZs or the retail sector.'' Pointing out that the UPA Government had inherited 8 per cent plus growth rate of GDP, he said the past three years of 8 per cent to 9 per cent growth was not due to the UPA government but ''inspite of it''.

Charging the government with complete paralysis in economic decision making, he said farmers were committing suicides in unprecedented numbers due to increase in rural indebtedness during the current regime.

Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself being an economist, the government has done economic mismanagement which has resulted in huge inflation particularly in food prices. It mismanaged supply side and instead of addressing that problem it started a backward credit poliy of an increase in the rate of interest thereby shattering the urban people's dream of acquiring a roof over their head. Asserting that there has been a stagnation in the infrastructure development, the BJP leader said it has slowed down the economy.

''Not only is the UPA a rag-tag coalition but considering the contrary pronouncements by various ministers, it is a Cabinet of collective irresponsibility,'' Mr Jaitley observed.

The only rare consensus has been brought by the economic measures of the government as the Left parties, the government, the UPA members all accused the government's of failure to check inflation resulting in its dwindling support base as indicated by the poll results in Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Uttarakhand and now the possible result of Uttar Pradesh and Goa assemblies will also prove this, he said.

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