Take political lessons from BJP, Advani tells UPA, Left

Unleashing a severe attack against the Congress-led UPA and the CPI(M)-led Left here on Tuesday evening, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Opposition leader in Lok Sabha LK Advani said both these alliances should take political lessons from the BJP.

While the UPA Government at the Centre was the weakest in the history of India, the Left had already proved development was impossible under its rule, he said. The BJP-ruled States had the best Governments in the present-day India, he claimed.

Addressing a public meeting organised as part of the party’s Vijay Sankalp Yatra at the Kozhikode beach, Advani said the monopoly of Congress influence in the country had ended. He pointed out that BJP now had more political influence in the country than the Congress.

Questioning the policies of the UPA Government at the Centre, Advani said, “Today the country is in a mess on all fronts: On the economic front, internal security front, foreign policy front, agriculture front… I can tell you from my experience this much. I have been fortunate to witness the elections in this country since 1954. The weakest of all the Governments India has seen in its history is the UPA Government.”

“In 2004, they (the Congress) had asked what the achievement of the BJP-led Government was…. What is the achievement of this Government? What have they achieved for the country, for the common man? Price rise? Inflation? The common man is feeling betrayed by this Government,” the BJP leader charged.

Advani questioned the claim of the UPA Government that the current global economic crisis would not affect India. “That will of course affect us in some way. But what has this Government done, except mismanagement, to resist that crisis?” he asked.

Training his guns at the Left camp led by the CPI(M), Advani said the Left rule in Kerala and West Bengal had become synonymous with corruption. The responsibility of delaying the Tata’s Nano car project by a year was with the CPI(M)-led Government in West Bengal, he said.

But the Narendra Modi Government in Gujarat had made the Nano car project a reality within a matter of days, he claimed. Good and efficient governance was seen only in BJP-ruled States, he pointed out.

Pointing out the paradoxes in the much acclaimed Kerala model of development, for which the Left always claimed credit, Advani said that the State needed an alternate development concept.

“For this there should be an alternate political system. For that we need an alternate cultural system. For all this there should be an alternate Government, which only the BJP can provide. It needs some time, and so let us concentrate now on what is happening to our country,” he said.

The BJP leader, who had spent the night at Mangalapuram after his programme at Kasaragod on Monday evening, had reached Kozhikode after a mysterious landing mix-up with the helicopter he was flying on at 10.30 am Tuesday 30 minutes behind schedule. In the morning he participated in the national award function in the name of noted journalist VM Korath.

He took part in a meeting of the State leaders of the BJP in the evening before addressing the public meeting. All the senior BJP leaders in the State, including State president PK Krishnadas and former Union Minister O Rajagopal, participated in both the programmes that Advani attended.