Advani gives perfect ten to UPA for its failures

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Shri L K Advani addressed a press conference in Goa on May 22 . Lambasting the UPA Government's policies Shri Advani presented an account of its failure on many fronts in the last three years. The excerpts of his statement issued at Goa.
For the first time in our Republic’s history, here is a government that is headed by a non-Prime Minister, run by a person who is not accountable to Parliament, and is surviving on life-support system provided by parties that behave more like the opposition.
Last week, when the Finance Minister was replying to the debate on the Budget in the Lok Sabha, the MPs belonging to the Left parties joined the opposition NDA in staging a walk-out in protest. Now, a senior minister in the government, Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, has himself publicly stated that the “UPA is no more aam aadmi's government.” According to him, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s is a government whose economic policy “may not get the ‘aam aadmi's’ endorsement."
I do not know why Shri Aiyar is being allowed to say such things by the Congress high command without being reprimanded. According to some analysts, this may be part of a deliberate attempt to distance the party’s supreme leader from the failures of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government, so that at an opportune time in the near future the nominal and nominated Prime Minister can be dispensed with.
Congress party has surrendered itself to a slavish culture in which the reigning “Dynasty” never does wrong and is never responsible or accountable for any failure.
One cannot expect any honest stock-taking of the three years of the UPA Government from this kind of imperious and dynastic leadership, which thinks that it is its birth-right to rule India. .
Ten failures of the UPA Government

1-Failure to contain inflation and the consequent steep rise in the prices of all essential commodities. This demonstrates the UPA Government’s betrayal of the aam aadmi, in whose name the Congress sought votes in 2004.
2-Failure to bring relief and revitalization to the agriculture sector. This is evident, above all, from the shocking number of farmers’ suicides in Congress-run states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
3-Failure – and even deliberate unwillingness – to attend to the needs of internal security. The UPA Government’s very first action was to repeal POTA. Since then, its soft and confused approach to dealing with the menace of jehadi terrorism has continued unabated. Its refusal to carry out the death sentence on Mohammed Afzal, who has been convicted by the Supreme Court in the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Indian Parliament, is proof enough that the UPA is ready to stoop to any level to pursue its politics of minorityism. Another shocking instance of minorityism was the government’s move to conduct communal census in India’s Armed Forces, which was hastily dropped only because of stout opposition from the BJP and all-round public condemnation, including a firm “No” from the military fraternity itself.

4-The government’s failure on the internal security front is also evident from its inaction in respect of the massive and continuing infiltration from Bangladesh.

5-Dogmatic and dogged pursuit of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, ignoring concerns expressed by eminent nuclear scientists and security experts, and ignoring also protests from the BJP and some constituents of the UPA itself. This has given rise to apprehensions that the leadership of the Congress and UPA is vulnerable to American pressure.
6-Failure to accelerate the implementation of major infrastructure development projects, which have suffered a slowdown after the exit of the NDA government. A prime example of this is the landmark National Highway Development Project. The power situation in most parts of the country is going from bad to worse. In neighbouring Maharashtra, it is perhaps the worst.
7-Failure to protect the interests of farmers in the shoddily formulated SEZ policy. Similarly, the policy on FDI in retail sector has created genuine apprehensions among lakhs of small traders, apart from raising fears of dumping of foreign goods in the Indian market.
8-Failure – indeed, conspicuous reluctance – to fight the evil of corruption. The UPA government is involved in three main corruption scandals in the past three years: The Quattrocchi scandal, the Scorpene submarine scandal, and the food-for-oil scandal in Iraq. In each of these, the government has been caught in the act of cover-up.
9-Failure to deal with – indeed, conscious promotion of – criminalization in politics and governance. The credibility of the UPA government on this score has taken severe knocks almost from day one. The inclusion of persons with proven criminal records in the Union council of ministers showed that the UPA was, for the first time, introducing criminalization into the governmental set-up at the central level. One of the former Cabinet ministers is now behind bars, convicted in a case of murder. 10-Failure of the Prime Minister to defend the dignity of his high office. Dr. Manmohan Singh has demeaned and devalued the office of the Prime Minister by demonstrating that the real power in the UPA Government is wielded not by him but by 10 Janpath.