By IANS,
New Delhi: Stepping up its attack on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has suffered “loss of confidence” in dealing with problems facing his government, and called upon its cadres to ready for a possible early general election.
In a hard hitting attack on the government at the end of its two-day national executive meeting, the BJP said there was “drift in governance” in the UPA.
“The government is in a suicidal mode, we don’t need to disturb it,” senior BJP leader L.K. Advani said.
“The UPA’s style of governance is full of arrogance, smugness and intolerance,” party leader Arun Jaitley told reporters.
Attacking the prime minister, Jaitley said Manmonhan Singh always lacked authority. “There is also now lack of confidence in dealing with the situation.”
Referring to Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee’s statement that inferences in his ministry’s note on 2G spectrum do not reflect his views, Jaitley said it was an “uneasy truce” with Chidambaram.
“Never do we remember senior ministers presenting themselves before the media and country and making it appear as a joint communique,” Jaitley said.
Such joint communiques were issued when differences were to be resolved between either soverign nations or political groups, he added.
Calling Mukherjee’s statement and Chidambaram’s subsequent acceptance of it as a “farce”, he said it had demolished concept of collective responsibility.
He said the country was not concerned with how the note was prepared but its contents which had not been disputed by anyone.
Mukherjee Thursday evening gave a statement that the March 25 note from his ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office, that said Chidambaram could have stopped the 2G spectrum scam, did not reflect his views on the issue.
Jaitley said the BJP national executive meeting also discussed senior party leader L.K. Advani’s anti-corruption ‘yatra’ which begins Oct 11 from Bihar.
He said the government might not be able to complete its term till 2014 and party leaders had been asked to remain prepared for every eventuality.
The meeting was not attended by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and former Karnataka chief minister B.S.Yeddyurappa. Modi’s absence dogged the meeting with Jaitley insisting that the Gujarat chief minister had no differences with Advani.
Refusing to take questions on the issue of party’s prime ministerial candidate, Jaitley said the party had already made it clear that the matter will be decided by the parliamentary board at an appropriate time.
In her address at the executive meeting, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said a revulsion had set in against the government which had been intolerant towards agitations against it.
“This government will not last long, and being the principal opposition party it is our responsibility to be ready. We must learn from the Congress’ mistakes and maintain a clean image and unity in party, keeping allies together…” she said. “This is how we will fulfill our duty as an opposition and also be prepared for an alternate government.”
In a rejoinder to the prime minister’s remark about opposition attempts to destabalise his government, Advani said: “The government is in a suicidal mode. We don’t need to disturb it.”
The meeting also discussed the party’s prepartions for forthcoming assembly polls in Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
It passed a political resolution and another on the India-Bangladesh land transfer agreement.
The political resolution demanded Chidambaram’s removal over his alleged role in the 2G spectrum allocation and raised questions about the prime minister’s culpability alleging that he “by-passed the cabinet and excluded spectrum pricing from the GoM jurisdiction which facilitated the massive 2G scam”.