Having got “no justice from Parliament,” the National Democratic Alliance announced here on Tuesday that it was ready to take the issue of corruption in the United Progressive Alliance “to the people.”
A series of rallies has been planned by the NDA, beginning on December 22 in Delhi. While plans are on for organising massive public meetings in Mumbai, Patna, Jaipur, Bhopal, Jammu, Ludhiana, Rohtak, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai, Bangalore has been skipped. An NDA leader remarked that the Bharatiya Janata Party was afraid to talk about corruption there after failing to get Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to resign following allegations of favours of plot allotments to his son and daughter and other relatives.
Although NDA convener Sharad Yadav, Janata Dal (United) president, tried hard to get some non-NDA parties like the Asom Gana Parishad, the Indian National Lok Dal, the Telugu Desam Party and the Biju Janata Dal to join the NDA rallies, none responded. As an NDA leader commented: “That will happen only if these parties tie up electorally with the BJP.”
Present on the dais were Mr. Yadav, Anant Geete (Shiv Sena) and Naresh Gujral (Shiromani Akali Dal), besides a galaxy of BJP leaders — Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Prakash Javadekar.
As veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani took the microphone to elaborate on the NDA plans — prompted by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Ms. Swaraj more than a dozen times — the focus was on Congress “stubbornness and obduracy” in not conceding the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam leading to a washout of the winter session.
Referring to the Congress president's statement at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting on Monday where Sonia Gandhi blamed the Opposition for parliamentary disruption, Mr. Advani sought to blame the Congress. He said the Lok Sabha did normal business on day one, but when the corruption issue was mentioned first by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Basudev Acharya and later by Ms. Swaraj, it was Congress MPs who did not allow her to speak.
It was this, he said, that led to the NDA making up its mind not to allow Parliament to run and insist on a JPC. He claimed: “We wanted the House to run as there were many issues to be discussed.”
However, when asked whether the Opposition would allow the Budget session to function normally, Mr. Advani's response was: “We will decide our strategy then.” He was also asked whether a recent statement by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat that the disputed land in Ayodhya ought not to be divided three-ways as ordered by the Allahabad High Court had come in the way of the BJP getting more parties to join its protest. Mr. Advani said different factors affect different parties, but on the issue of corruption, the NDA expected more support.
Asked whether the BJP was not ashamed of its own dismal track record on fighting corruption in Karnataka — land allotments and illegal mining, he said: “We have taken note, we are taking action.”
To a question whether the party was prepared to bring a no-confidence motion to dislodge a government it considers corrupt, Mr. Advani said: “This is not a solution. The talk of mid-term polls is to frighten the MPs who do not want to curtail their term. We would welcome it, but it is not a solution.”
