By IANS,
New Delhi : The BJP Thursday warned that early polls will be forced if the Congress led-UPA government failed to address the issue of price rise, as it stepped up attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he lacks decision-making skills.
“He (Manmohan Singh) is the prime minister but he cannot take decisions. His biggest failure is to give direction to the economy,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar said.
The BJP described Thursday’s Bharat Bandh – a nationwide shutdown against the recent petroleum price hike a huge success and demanded a complete roll back.
Javadekar said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had put the economy in a “slowdown” mode.
“Government should understand warning of people. People will not wait for two years (to unseat the government in 2014 elections). Their anger is visible,” Javedakar told media persons here
“If it (the government) cannot act to bring down prices, if it is paralysed, it should quit for the better of country,” he added.
Terming Thursday’s nationwide shutdown against hike in petrol price as “historic” and successful, Javadekar said thousands of people had joined protests in every state of the country.
He said the shutdown had been supported by most opposition parties as also some supporters of UPA government.
Javadekar also targeted the government over slowdown of growth rate to 6.5 percent from the projected 6.9 percent for 2011-12.
“It is a slowdown government, a government which has developed policy paralysis. Current account deficit, revenue deficit, unemployment is growing…value of rupee, growth rate is going down. Ineptitude of government is killing India growth story,” Javadekar said and added that investors were also losing confidence.
Another party leader Ananth Kumar said that the party will not be satisfied by a partial rollback. “They have to roll back completely,” he said.
Oil marketing companies had hiked petrol prices by about Rs. 7.50 last week, prompting nationwide protests.