The Congress-led UPA II government will go for early poll to the Lok Sabha, going by its acts and the problems it is facing, senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party M. Venkaiah Naidu said here on Saturday.
“As it is it is facing the people’s ire for failing to control the steep price rise, the many scams its leaders are involved in and it would not like to wait to face more problems. Advancing elections is a damage control exercise for the Congress. The AICC rally in Delhi on November 4 and a brain storming session later at Suraj Kund would see the Congress finalising its plans. After introducing a vote on account budget during the next session and some populist schemes, Congress and its allies would go for an early poll”, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said at a press conference.
He also charged the Congress for failing to maintain the spirit of coalition government. The Trinamul Congress left the alliance, the DMK supported the general strike organised by the opposition parties while remaining in the UPA and SP and BSP were supporting it from outside only.
The BJP leader wanted people to get ready to witness an early poll and teach a lesson to the Congress and asserted that the BJP would be successful in the election.
The additions made to the Union Cabinet and the reshuffle of the ministries were only cosmetic changes but would not save the Congress from defeat, he said. The party would be routed in the next elections, he said.
The way the whole exercise was done also indicated that the Congress could not run the government in the proper manner or respect the people’s opinion as it had taken in persons facing corruption charges. Promoting the corrupt and punishing the honest was the way of UPA, he said regarding shifting of Jaipal Reddy from the petroleum ministry and elevating Salman Kurshid as Foreign Minister.
The reshuffle was done in a casual manner and lacked political maturity in shifting and selecting the ministers, he said citing the examples of Mr. Jagadrakshakan, Ms. D. Purandeswari, Mr. Jiten Prasad, Mr. Jitendra Singh and Lal Chand Kataria.
Criticising the way the UPA government was functioning, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said that while the Prime Minister declared six LPG refills (at subsidised rate) were sufficient for a family for the whole year, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said next day that nine could be given. The government claimed that the oil companies would decide the price of refills but on Friday, just two days before the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections, it asked the oil companies to defer the hike of Rs. 26.50 per refill.
Condoling the death of senior leader of Telugu Desam party K. Yerran Naidu in a road accident in the early hours of Friday, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu wanted the King George Hospital here to be upgraded to a super speciality hospital and keep ambulances at every toll gate so that accident victims were shifted to the hospital without delay.
