New Delhi:
BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley talk about inflation, security and the economic crisis India is facing.
Here are the highlights:
Sushma Swaraj:- UPA-2 has finished four years today. In the past four years, they have been so unsuccessful that we do not wish to delve into their entire nine-year regime
- Dr Manmohan Singh is the PM but not the leader of the UPA. Allies sit with him in the Cabinet but look towards UPA chairperson for solutions
- There is one-upmanship between the Congress party and the government
- Prices of fuel were raised consistently and each time Sonia would bring the prices by a rupee or so
- So the trend was that the difficult decisions were made by the government but the appeasement was done by the Congress
- Financial situation of the country is a big issue
- We have known financial situation in terms of GDP, fiscal growth etc
- UPA agreed that NDA had given good financial policies in their first economic survey
- Infrastructure projects worth lakhs of crores are pending, according to a news daily
- We gave the UPA-I a booming economy. That scenario has completely changed. No investments coming in, no decisions being taken
- There is mind-boggling corruption, figures that have never been heard of
- The brunt of corruption is being borne by the common man in terms of inflation
- UPA has also been unsuccessful in foreign relations - Maldives is eye-balling India, we have been unsuccessful when it came to securing rights of Lankan Tamils
- India is not doing enough for Tamils
- It took so long to solve the incursion in Ladakh
- The government has failed in foreign policy
- This governance has seen maximum crimes against women
- We are surprised what the UPA is celebrating today
- They should have sat down to apologise to the nation
- They don't believe in democratic process
- When they were appointing the CVC, I had given a dissent note, finally appointment had to be scrapped by Supreme Court
- They are now doing the same with NHRC
- They are not going to do anything
- They are going to exploit democratic institutions
- The UPA will not introspect but we have decided to stage protests, and launch jail bharo andolan
- If we come to power we'll take policy decisions which will bring relief to the common man
- Wrong to say parties will not come with NDA, some of them were part of NDA till 2004
- Parliamentary board will decide who'll be the face of the party at an appropriate time, why are you so eager?
- Had they taken the resignations (of Ashwani KUmar and Pawan Bansal) on May 8, we would have passed bills on 9-10(in Budget Session of Parliament)
Arun Jaitley:
- Never has the country seen such an atmosphere of gloom, cynicism and pessimism
- This is all because the governance of UPA 2
- They have the ego of being in power
- The propaganda isn't being accepted by the people
- The opinion polls suggest that UPA 2 popularity is going down drastically
- The danger of excessive propaganda is that you accept your own propaganda
- They look towards the UPA chairperson for the present, to someone else for the future, as if there is no political role for the PM
- Don't remember any other period where the office of the PM has become a target of sarcasm and humour
- This is the state of India
- We had a booming economy because of NDA which was given to UPA
- Policy paralysis wasn't even used when the economy was at 2%
- UPA suffering from policy paralysis
- UPA's only achievement is using CBI to its advantage
- If they did not misuse the CBI, then perhaps the Samajwadi Party and BSP would not have saved them with 'outside' support
- Lokpal law is ready but they have not brought it on the floor of the House
- They have put up a futile attempt by setting up a GoM for CBI
- Lokpal legislation which need recommendations for Delhi police are already been given, but they don't want to move ahead
- Confident that election results will be spectacularly in our favour
- Third Front is a failed idea, the polity of India has become increasingly bi-polar