New Delhi, Aug 23: Justifying her decision to move a no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today charged Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee with giving "half-baked and elusive" replies to the nine-point chargesheet brought up by her against the government during the debate. "It is not our party's duty to save the government which loses no opportunity to blame the Congress for its own failure. It is a case of pot calling the kettle black," she said in an apparent reply to the Prime Minister and BJP questioning her decision to move the no-trust motion against the government.
Inaugurating a Rs 9.5 crore Rajiv Gandhi Stadium of the Delhi government on the outskirts here, Gandhi said her party would not condone government's "laxity" and its shortcomings on various fronts maintaining that "criticism is a natural corollary of parliamentary democracy".
Gearing up the party's rank and file for the upcoming assembly elections in Delhi, she dubbed the BJP-led NDA government as a "colossal failure" on all fronts and accused it of "compromising" nation's security. "BJP is a corrupt party which has played with national security, ruined farmers and spoiled the career of youth," the leader of the Opposition said.
Gandhi accused the government of being unable to "carry forward the progress" initiated by her party governments.
"BJP was not able to carry forward the progress initiated by earlier Congress regimes, instead they blame us for every failure of theirs," she said.
Recalling that immediately after independence, there were no industries, no food crops and opportunities were limited, Gandhi said it was only due to the efforts of the party that the country has moved forward in all the fields. She said at that time one had to import even a needle from other countries.
"But if now we are in a position to compete with the other nations of the world, it is because of the Congress party," she added.
Sonia hit out at BJP's policy of "selling" PSUs and rued that "the precious legacy of Congress, which played a major role in country's economic consolidation, is being sold for profit. Why this is being done and who are the beneficiaries”.
Sonia lauded Sheila Dikshit government for doing a "remarkable" job and dismissed the BJP proposed statehood bill as a "shame and worthless". Bureau Report