New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran Lal Krishna Advani Saturday said the coming year is sure to bring "big changes in national politics".
In a year-end message issued by the BJP office here, Advani said: "As I look ahead, I have no doubt that year 2012 is pregnant with the certainty of big changes in national politics."
"The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government's 'fleedom at midnight' in the Rajya Sabha Thursday, as my colleague Arun Jaitley has memorably described, has rendered Manmohan Singh a lame duck prime minister," he said.
The initiative to define the course of politics in the New Year has clearly shifted to the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Advani added.
Calling the Lokpal bill fiasco in the Rajya Sabha "unprecedented", he said the government invited ignominy upon itself because of "virtual evaporation of responsibility on the part of the prime minister".
"The fraud on democracy, which the nation witnessed on the night of Dec 29, was unprecedented. At a time when India expected honest transparent leadership from the prime minister, Manmohan Singh chose conspiratorial silence and acquiescence," he said.
Advani was all praise for opposition leaders in two houses Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. He also lauded Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev.
"Year 2011 will be remembered for a remarkable rise in the activism of India's non-political citizenry. The sustained agitation led by Anna Hazare for the enactment of a strong Lokpal struck a chord in large sections of the citizenry... Earlier, the agitation led by Baba Ramdev against corruption and black money also evoked widespread response," he added.
IANS
First Published: Saturday, December 31, 2011, 16:50