By IANS,
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday accused the “corrupt UPA (United Progressive Alliance) regime” of trying to deliberately defame and destabilise the party’s governments in states and “compromising” their interests by putting pressure on central cadre officers.
The resolution adopted at the meeting of party chief ministers, which ended here Tuesday, said the “corrupt regime of UPA has lowered the country’s national prestige”.
It said that no central government in the past faced such crisis of credibility arising out of innumerable scandals involving people in ruling establishment and systematic efforts were being made to paint all political parties with the same brush.
“We firmly resolve to resist such attempts. At the same time, we also undertake to look within,” the resolution said.
In his remarks at the concluding session, senior party leader L.K. Advani accused the UPA government of trying to unseat democratically elected governments through “rank abuse of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other constitutional functionaries” and said that the most prominent case was Gujarat.
“It appears there is a conspiracy in Delhi to destabilise (party governments),” Advani said.
Party’s chief spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad, who briefed the media, said that Advani pointed out to the people’s support to the BJP state governments and said their performance was good.
The BJP leaders said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi accused the central government of “compromising interests” of BJP-ruled states by putting pressure on central cadre officers.
They said that Modi, who spoke in the context of an affidavit filed by an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt against him and instance of UPA not taking his government on board in case of deputation of officers, was backed by other chief ministers.
BJP general secretary J.P. Nadda said that chief ministers complained of pressure being built on bureaucracy by the central government.
“They (the officers) are being told (by the central government) that if you have to progress in career, you have to listen to us,” alleged Nadda.
Prasad said chief ministers said that governors were acting as “political agents of UPA”.
In the four-page resolution, the BJP chief ministers reaffirmed their commitment to national reconstruction through good governance, transparency and accountability.
The resolution said that corruption had increased manifold under the UPA government and the BJP had always regarded corruption as an assault on inherent dignity of a person and betrayal of one’s responsibility.
The resolution said citizens had a duty to fight corruption and the party will lead and support all such efforts.
The chief ministers resolved to establish an in house mechanism to review performance of governments periodically, establish practice of declaring figures of state Gross Domestic Product and social indicators and evolving consensus about electoral reforms aimed at curbing role of money power.
Prasad said that the party will seek discussion on recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission, set up to look into centre-state relations, in the next session of parliament and alleged that the government was flouting them with impunity.
Asked if corruption of BJP governments was also discussed, Prasad said that the summoning of two Punjab ministers of the party by the CBI “was a well-thought out plan”.
“It is a copybook case of misuse of CBI,” he said, adding that CBI action starts only on recommendation of state government or on judicial orders and it was not the case with the two ministers.
On the allegations of nepotism concerning Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, Prasad said while the BJP leader had imposed ban on iron ore mining, former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had issued 47 such licences, 22 of them after his government was reduced to a minority.
The two-day meeting, that began Monday, was attended by seven BJP chief ministers, besides the deputy chief minister of Bihar and a senior minister of the party from Punjab.