)
Arun Jaitley, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, on Saturday launched a tirade against the incumbent United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying, “India can’t afford a non-politician as prime minister.”
Speaking at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci)’s annual general meeting Jaitley said, “Prime ministers must be natural leaders of the country and their party,” a clear attack on the UPA’s twin power structure of Sonia Gandhi as Congress president and Manmohan Singh as head of the government.
Ascribing the current policy paralysis and economic stagnation to such a diarchy, Jaitley said, “Prime ministership is not an employment. Prime ministers can never look helpless and be seen as not being allowed to deliver.”
Drawing obvious parallels with Narendra Modi’s robust leadership attributes, albeit without naming him, Jaitley said, “Corporates can have hired CEOs but not countries; countries cannot run this way.”
Highlighting the electoral successes of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the recent Assembly elections, he said, “When you can govern well, you can defeat even two- or three-term anti-incumbency,” hinting at the BJP’s success in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. With obvious reference to Rajasthan, he said, “Populism alone does not fetch votes.” Lambasting the UPA and its vote bank-targeted poverty alleviation schemes, he said, “Land Bill or food Bill, these haven’t got you even half percentage votes.”
The BJP’s prescription for the economy, he stressed, was a “market economy, with a social conscience”.
He said scams such as those related to 2G telecom spectrum allocation had definitely tarnished the image of “brand India”. A robust prime minister, Jaitley said, would have stepped in and resolved the mess in the telecom sector before it blew out of proportion.
“The only silver lining is things can’t get any worse than this,” Jaitley said, adding, “Political change in the country is a must.”
Foremost on the BJP agenda for reviving the economy was “reviving and restoring the investment cycle”.
Addressing the concerns of industry leaders, including Ficci president Naina Lal Kidwai, Jaitley said, “Of course, I know the virtues of Goods and Services Tax, the advantages it has on our revenue collection.” But states didn’t have faith in such an unjust central government and, therefore, weren’t cooperating on this front, he said.
Dismissing criticism for holding up Parliament and obstructing decision making as “weak alibis of the government”, Jaitley said except for the insurance Bill, most other decisions held up were executive ones, which the government could address administratively---the slowdown in the roads sector, infrastructural projects, etc.
“This is not just a lame-duck government, but a dead-duck one,” he said.
