Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel on Saturday said the UPA-2 government has failed to defend its own policies, particularly telecom spectrum and coal block allocations, which cost them politically.
“I think somewhere we went wrong. We must admit it that we failed to defend some of our (government’s) own policies,” Mr. Patel said while addressing FICCI’s 86th Annual General Meeting.
Elaborating further, he said, “I think political executive must be able to drive change. That is going to be possible when you institute a sense of confidence in people who deliver and execute; that we are standing behind you.”
“I think the last three years, somewhere we have lost the direction on this count and that has cost the country dearly and that has cost us politically,” he added.
“When it came to the 2G (spectrum) issue, we failed to defend the policy as it is good for the country and if at all there were areas of implementation which were not politically right or transparent enough to pass any test, I think those could have been addressed. But we ended up not defending the policy itself,” said Mr. Patel.
“We should have been bold enough to take up issues and say that what we have done is right and is in the interest of the nation and in the interest of industry. What we are now saying, is going back again to what we should have said earlier. The net result is that we lost couple of years,” he said.
