The Hindu : Vajpayee criticises Congress volte face on coalition govts.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2003

National

National

Vajpayee criticises Congress volte face on coalition govts.

By Prafulla Das

Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty.

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, with the Governor of Orissa, M.M. Rajendran (centre), and the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, at the AIIMS foundation stone-laying ceremony at Sijua in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.

BHUBANESWAR JULY 15 . The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today criticised the Congress for initially ridiculing coalition politics but later coming round to accepting it. The coalition formula adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party was working well, he said.

Launching the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) by laying the foundation for the Orissa branch of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here, Mr. Vajpayee said that five years ago when the BJP went on to form a coalition Government at the Centre the Congressmen had said that the experiment would not work.

"The coalition Government at the Centre as well as such Governments in different States, where the BJP was a partner, were doing well," Mr. Vajpayee said.

The Prime Minister claimed that no Congress Government in the past had matched the performance of the ruling National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre.

He sat in the Opposition for 50 years but had never compromised on principles to come to power. "We stuck to our own political principles." He clarified that there would be no disinvestment of the National Aluminium Company (NALCO) now. The Orissa Government was being criticised by the Opposition over the delay in setting up the Indian Oil Corporation's refinery at Paradip and the Centre's proposal to go in for disinvestment of the NALCO. The project at Paradip would be completed soon with the cooperation of the Centre and the Orissa Government. The foundation for the refinery was laid by Mr. Vajpayee in 2000.

Stating that the NDA Government had faced a series of challenges in the past five years, Mr. Vajpayee said efforts were on to ensure education for each and every child in the country, medical treatment for all patients and employment for the youth.

All villages were being linked by pucca roads and all pucca roads of the villages were being connected to the highways.

The interest rate for housing loans had been brought down for the benefit of the people at large.

About the PMSSY, Mr. Vajpayee said the aim was to provide quality healthcare to the people at an affordable cost, even at the village level. To begin with, six super-speciality hospitals would be set up by the AIIMS in different States.

The AIIMS branch at Bhubaneswar, for which 100 acres had already been allotted by the State, would be named Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Sushma Swaraj, said the AIIMS would also be setting up its branches in Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattishgarh and Uttaranchal.

She said that under the PMSSY some existing hospitals would be developed as super-speciality hospitals in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr. Vajpayee dedicated to the nation the Bhubaneswar-based Institute of Life Sciences. The Institute, recently taken over by the Centre at the request of the Orissa Government, conducts research in the field of biotechnology.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National