Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, said on Thursday that the UPA had lost the will to govern and its leaders had lost the will to fight back.
Jaitley wrote on his official site – "The UPA Government has faced several adversities. The Government’s decision making ability is in doubt. The economy is not picking up. There is no coordination between the ministers and Corruption has dented the image of the government."
He further said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was never perceived to be a mass leader and at the same time the projection by the UPA of their next generation leader had not taken off. "The UPA has lost the will to govern. Its leaders have lost even the will to fight back. The UPA’s non-performance and falling image was compounded by two other mistakes, "he said, adding, "The arrogance of power was writ large in the statements of its ministers and leaders. They thought that power is immortal and no other political combination will ever displace them. Excessive propaganda has its dangers. The people do not digest such propaganda."
"The recently concluded session of Parliament evidenced this loss of capacity and will to rule. No effort was made to get the session to run. The session had to be abandoned midway. The disturbance was predominantly by the UPA members, their allies and supporters," Jaitley also said.
Commenting on the Lokpal Bill which was passed by the Lok Sabha yesterday, after being passed by the Rajya a day before, the BJP leader said, "The Lokpal Bill was delayed by several years because the UPA refused to accept the formulations contained in the now approved enactment. They broke the negotiations with Team Anna. They refused to accept my amendments on 29/12/2011 and adjourned the session at midnight. They refused to accept the Select Committee recommendations. An electoral rap on the knuckles has led to the complete collapse of their arrogance. Now all these suggestions have been favoured."
On the intervention by Congress vice President, Rahul Gandhi, who had last week urged all political parties to back the Lokpal Bill, Jaitley wrote, "Their leader decided to join the bandwagon though belatedly. In the process he even forgot his ‘game-changer’ speech delivered two years ago in the Lok Sabha where he had argued exactly the opposite."
At the same time, the BJP leader was of the view that the UPA had no game plan to deal with the Aam Aadmi Party which won 28 seats in the recently concluded Assembly polls in Delhi, while the Congress won just 08.
"What is the UPA game plan to deal with the AAP? It may not be fully correct to say that AAP is the B-team of the Congress. It is the Congress which has now agreed to become the B-team of the AAP – again an evidence of the lack of will to fight back," he said.
Jaitley added, "It is now an under-statement to call the UPA a lame duck government. It is in fact a dead duck."
The BJP decimated the Congress in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi in the state elections. However, the Congress won in the fifth state that went to the polls – Mizoram.
