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Expressing confidence that the UPA would get a third term in 2014, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari on Friday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was never ever been able to reconcile itself to the fact that it was decisively rejected by the electorate both in 2004 and 2009.
Tewari, who was reacting to BJP leader Arun Jaitley's claims that a strong anti-incumbency mood was prevailing in India and that leadership potential will dictate the outcome of the general elections in 2014, said the entire conduct of the main opposition party over the past ten years whether inside the Parliament or outside it has reflected this desperation at their inability to reconcile to the people's verdict.
"So, therefore, there is a tremendous amount of anger in this country against the obstructionist, negative, reactionary and anti-people attitude of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2004, they said that they had lost by default. They thought that in 2009 they would be returned to government, again they were decisively rejected," said Tewari.
"In 2014, give the rights based entitlement paradigm of the UPA Government; we are confident that people will once again give us a chance to continue the good work. And for the BJP, Delhi 'doorast hai' and the grapes are sour," he added.
Jaitley had earlier during an address at the International Peace Institute in New York said the anti-incumbency mood in India is 'unprecedented' and resembles the one that existed in 1977 and 1989 when governments that had comfortable majority lost by a huge margin.
Asserting that the Indian electorate is looking for an 'alternative' since people see the governance of the last few years 'as a major leadership failure', he said that as far as the economic management of the country is concerned, the head of the government or the Prime Minister must have the last word.
Jaitley further said that creation of power centres outside the government, whose command runs with the government and which become authority without responsibility, also contributed to the angry anti-incumbency mood.
