Prime Minister Manmohan Singh greets people during an election campaign rally of Congress candidate K V Thomas at Kochi on Sunday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today deprecated what he described as "malicious" propaganda by BJP that UPA Government failed to take harsh steps to check corruption and asserted "this accusation is completely false".
Seeking to turn tables on the opposition BJP and also Left parties, Dr Singh accused them of not cooperating with the government in Parliament in its effort to enact more laws against corruption.
(IndiaVotes 2014: full coverage)"We are accused of not trying hard enough to check corruption. This accusation is completely false. The truth is that we have taken more measures than any other government to contain corruption," Dr Singh said addressing an election rally for the April 10 Lok Sabha elections in Kerala.
Wherever instances of wrong doing had come to light, strict legal action had been taken to bring the guilty to book, he asserted while rejecting BJP charge against his government on the issue of curbing corruption.
Taking a swipe at opposition parties, Dr Singh said the Lokpal Act was a major step in the battle against corruption.
"We wanted to enact a few more laws for fighting corruption. But we could not make these laws because of total lack of cooperation by the opposition parties in Parliament. I am placing these facts before you so that you can judge for yourself the reality about some of the parties which are so vocal against corruption," he said.
Slamming Left parties, which is leading the LDF, is main challenger for Congress-led UDF in 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, Dr Singh said the influence of Left parties was bound to dwindle further in the future unless they changed in tune with the time.
"The people of India have recognised this and that is why the Left parties suffered heavy losses in the 2009 general elections and also lost Kerala and West Bengal in the subsequent assembly elections. I believe that the Left parties will continue to decline unless they show some willingness to change their dogmatic ways of thinking", he said.