By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s first year in office in its second phase has been “a year of disappointment”, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Monday.
“A year after electoral success, the first anniversary of the government ought to be celebrated with enthusiasm. But it was never expected that … it will be an year of disappointment,” BJP leader Arun Jaitley said.
Jaitley was addressing a rally at Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital to protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “bad governance”.
He also took the government to task for failing to check rising prices of food and other essential commodities.
“Prices are in control the world over. But look at the first failure of this government. They cannot even claim a single step they have taken to control the rising prices,” the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha said.
He said food prices had increased from 17 percent to 19 percent though “food is rotting in government warehouses and rats are eating it away”.
“Our leaders went to some government food storages and found that the food stock was rotting there. And in markets, there is scarcity of food items. That is why, the prices have increased.”
He criticised the “economist prime minister (Manmohan Singh) who is leading the government but lacks an imagination on how to tackle the spiralling prices.
“When questions are being asked, even today a question was asked, to the prime minister, about the prices, he replies that they are hopeful that prices will come down.
“We have been living with this hope for the last one year but nothing has happened,” Jaitley said.