BJP attacks UPA: ‘Perform or perish’

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The BJP on Saturday mounted a comprehensive and gritty attack on the UPA government at its national executive meeting in Patna, dissecting the UPA-2’s first year issue by issue and calling the Congress-led government a total failure in critical issues such as internal security, foreign policy, price control, action against erring cabinet ministers and agriculture.
In his impassioned address to 352 senior BJP leaders drawn from across the country, party president Nitin Gadkari said the UPA’s misgovernance had created a “different kind of emergency in the country” and asked Dr Manmohan Singh’s government to perform or perish. He also launched a veiled attack on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, saying: “Its (UPA government’s) presiding political deity has no exposure to the intricacies of governance.”
“It (the UPA-2’s first year) turned out to be a super flop show. This misgovernance is the result of some basic incongruities of this regime. The integrity and the intentions of the government are thoroughly questionable,” said Mr Gadkari, soon after paying rich tributes to a host of past national icons, the BJP’s own recently departed stalwarts and Bihar’s political past legends.
He hit the UPA hard, especially on security issues, foreign policy and rising prices. Mocking at the UPA’s report card, he said: “A brilliant student shows his merit through his actions and not through report cards. The Congress promised to control prices of essential commodities in 100 days, whereas the prices have increased by 100 per cent.”
The growing complications in Indo-Pak relations, said Mr Gadkari, were due to “a crisis of courage of conviction in the government”.
Stressing the BJP’s position of zero tolerance to terror, he said engaging in talks would remain futile until Pakistan takes concrete steps to wipe out terror networks operating on its soil.
As for Sri Lanka, Mr Gadkari demanded resettlement of the island nation’s Indian-origin people with dignity.

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Gujarat: Ad symbolic
Age Correspondent
Ahmedabad

The Gujarat government on Saturday played down the controversy over alleged use of photographs of girls learning computers in UP in its advertisement projecting how Muslims are better off in the state, saying the pictures were for “symbolic purpose” only.
Gujarat information commissioner V. Thiruppugazh said the government had hired an advertisement agency which released the ad in the Bihar dailies.