Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: As the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government celebrated the fourth anniversary of its second avatar, the BJP on Wednesday hit out at the coalition, dubbing it a failure.
Speaking at a press briefing in the national capital, senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said the UPA leadership was divided.
Hitting out at the Prime Minister, Sushma said, "Manmohan Singh is a PM but not a leader either of the party or the country."
"UPA allies sit with the PM to discuss problems but look up to UPA chairperson (Sonia Gandhi) for solutions," she added.
The BJP leader pointed out that "coalitions need special leadership" and the "UPA hasn`t been able to provide the leadership that the country needs".
"A number of times it has happened that the government took a decision which the public didn`t like and then the UPA chairperson wrote a letter seeking a rollback of the decision."
"It has become a practice to blame the government for bad decisions, and party takes credit for the rollback," Sushma rued.
"The NDA government had handed over a booming economy to the UPA government, which even they had acknowledged in their first Economic Survey.
"However today, the economic environment is depressing and worrying... people are not investing, but only withdrawing," the BJP leader said expressing concern.
"Corruption has crossed all limits during the UPA regime... and the common man is suffering in the form of rising prices.
"Never before inflation has risen this much under any other government," Sushma said.
According to her, the UPA had failed on the foreign affairs front as well and even "small nations like Maldives were dared India".
She further noted that cases of crimes against women have risen drastically under the UPA regime.
"What are they celebrating today?" she asked, alleging that the UPA doesn`t have regard for even constitutional institutions like the CVC.
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said "never before has the country seen an environment of such gloom, pessimism, cynicism and negativism".
When asked to comment on the possibility of small parties coming together for the next Lok Sabha elections, Jaitley said, "Third Front does not exist; it is a failed idea."
Both Jaitley and Sushma skirted questions on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi assuming greater responsibility within the BJP, and stated the party will name its PM candidate at an appropriate time.
