UPA agenda a document of compromise, says Jaswant

Dubbing the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) a "document of compromise", former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and NDA convener George Fernandes launched a frontal attack on the new government.

Singh and Fernandes released a document comparing the NDA's agenda and the CMP. "The CMP is a post-election product, if the NDA has been rejected by the people it does not automatically mean that the CMP is what the people want," said Jaswant Singh.

He compared the present UPA government to an out-of-control car with too many drivers.

"There is a steering wheel with four or five hands on it, and at the same time, half-a-dozen pair of legs are looking for the brake pedal, while no one can quite locate the accelerator," he said.

Both Fernandes and Singh stressed that although their best wishes were with the new finance minister P Chaidambaram, they could not quite see how the minister was expected to get the required amount of money to spend on the many welfare programmes in the CMP.

"The proposed increase in public spending on health and education as well as employment is admirable, but I want to know as to where the UPA will find the money," said Singh.

"The economy of the country should not become a plaything of passing political compulsions," he added.

Singh was particularly critical of the guaranteed 100 days employment promised in the CMP. "Promises should be within the realms of possibility," he said.

On the disbanding of the ministry for disinvestment, Singh said that the ministry had been reduced to a department within the finance ministry to essentially perform the same function.

"The CMP talks of disinvesting only non-profit making Public Sector Units (PSUs). But in our (NDA government) experience, loss making PSUs do not get any buyers," he said.

"PSUs are financed with tax payers money and to continue running loss making units would be unfair to the public which finance them," he added.

The comparison between the NDA and the UPA programmes sought to draw attention to the fact that whereas the NDA agenda had been detailed in its approach to achieving certain goals, the UPA, in Singh's words was "common and minimum." The duo was forthcoming on other matters too.

They said that all NDA MP s would be marching to Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday to hand over "evidence" on tainted ministers who have criminal records. Questioned on whether they would boycott tainted ministers just as scam afflicted Fernandes had been, the latter replied that "there is a civilizational difference between us and them."

Singh said that a lot of introspection was needed to stem the criminalisation of Parliament and politics. He admitted that the BJP too had been caught on the wrong foot when it admitted D P Yadav who is a history sheeter.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) an RSS front organisation's praise for the welafrist CMP was dismissed by Fernandes as a "difference of opinion".

With this the NDA seems to have decided the issues on which they are to tackle the UPA. "We would like to see how the UPA will deliver the lofty promises of the CMP," said Singh.