Sonia is acting as super PM, says BJP

The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) today accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of practising "unbridled minorityism" and alleged that Sonia Gandhi as "super prime minister" was "exercising all authority with no accountability to Parliament".

Despite being under pressure from the Sangh Parivar to return to the Hindutva fold, the BJP at its special national executive session here avoided any reference to Hindutva or its pet issues in party chief LK Advani's opening remarks, the political resolution and even the resolution to celebrate the party's silver jubilee.

Describing the UPA government as "one of the most non-performing and contradiction-ridden regimes since independence," the BJP in a political resolution adopted at the meeting, said it was headed by "the weakest Prime Minister India has had."

Pilloried for being anti-farmer, the BJP national executive flayed the UPA government's "record of betrayal and non-performance." Asking for a "white paper" on farmers' suicides and a reduction in the interest rate on farm credit to 9 per cent, the BJP appeared anxious to lay the ghost of "India Shining" to rest.

While the political content of the resolution was explosive enough with an entire chapter being dedicated to "minority appeasement" and "population explosion," the pain of the Congress "aam aadmi" campaign sweeping the party out of power was plainly visible in it.

"The Congress contested elections by claiming to champion the interests of the aam aadmi. That aam aadmi is today groaning under unprecedented price rise," stated the resolution.

The resolution also took on the UPA government for what it called the "hurried passage of a deficient Patents Bill" and the introduction of the value-added tax (VAT) regime without "full preparation", which contributed to the rise in prices of medicines.

The proposed Employment Guarantee Bill, 2004, also came in for criticism.

"The common minimum programme had promised to immediately enact a national employment guarantee law to provide 100 days of guaranteed employment to at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middle-class household. Not only is the law not in place yet, but the promise itself has performed a vanishing act," said the resolution.

The resolution further states that "the finance minister has not been able to find a single rupee to back this grandiose assurance." The resolution, in fact, takes on the New Food For Work Programme (NFFWP).

"The massive food for work programme that Manmohan Singh inaugurated in Andhra Pradesh in December 2004 is nothing but a repackaging of the Rs 10,000-crore Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana initiated by the Vajpayee government," read the resolution.

The resolution further listed the falling procurement prices for agriculture products and the unabated suicide rate among farmers.

"The common minimum programme had promised 'adequate protection' to all farmers. We want to ask where is the protection," said the resolution. The rest of the resolution directly attacked Congress chief as the "puppeteer" behind the "misuse" of the office of the governor in Jharkhand and Goa.

Earlier in the day, Advani called the BJP a "pole of hope" as opposed to the other pole of India politics-- the Congress party. "The BJP is by far the stronger of the two poles in terms of ideological distinctiveness," he said.

"The Congress heads the UPA, but provides no leadership to it," it said adding this was in stark contrast to the state of affairs when Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was running the affairs at the Centre.

Faulting the congress on all fronts, the BJP national executive accused the UPA of "betraying" every promise contained in the common minimum programme resulting in a situation that the common man was groaning under "unprecedented price rise", unemployed youth have been tricked and "betrayal of promises made to farmers is of no less magnitude."