Parliament converted itself into an election campaign stage as political parties on Tuesday used the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President?s address to target each other and assert that it would come to power at the Centre.
Launching a sharp criticism against the government, leader of Opposition and BJP?s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani set the ball rolling in the Lok Sabha by contending that the people would reject the ?hand? responsible for the problems before the country. ?The time is coming when people will recognise the hand that made price rise possible, the hand that made farmers commit suicides, the hand that made the economy as bad as it is now, the hand that made the Satyam-Maytas scandal possible,? he said. In his budget speech, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had spoken of the ?hand? that can help the nation, a not so veiled reference to the election symbol of Congress. Advani also accused the Congress-led coalition of misusing institutions like the CBI, the Election Commission and even Parliament.
Mukherjee is likely to respond to the discussion on Wednesday even as the party fielded senior leaders V Kishore Chandra Deo and party chief whip Madhusudan Mistry to counter the BJP attack on Tuesday. ?The mandate of Delhi is the mandate of the country,? Deo, who initiated the discussion, said even as he rejected the BJP contention that the UPA had failed miserably in tackling terror. ?Vote cannot be sought or bought on the bodies of slain people,? he said, taking on the BJP for politicising terrorism.
The Left too joined hands with the BJP in attacking the UPA as CPI (M) member Mohammed Salim flayed the government for liberalising the FDI policy by bypassing Parliament and flouting procedures. ?The country?s greatest challenge today was the government?s attitude of bypassing Parliament and announcing policy changes in FDI through an executive order soon after a GoM decided on it,? he said. CPI member CK Chandrappan regretted that the Congress had talked about giving Bharat Ratna to former US President George W Bush. ?Wherever Bush goes he gets shoes and we want to give him Bharat Ratna,? he said.
Interestingly, the Samajwadi Party (SP) gave no indication of its ongoing verbal duel with the Congress outside Parliament as party member Mohan Singh showered compliments on the latter for completing five years of coalition government. ?There is a lesson for leader of the Opposition LK Advani in this…on how to run a coalition government,? Singh said.
Alliance partners of the UPA also used the occasion to indulge in patting themselves in the back. Supporting the motion, RJD member Devendra Prasad Yadav said government?s decision to provide insurance security to labourers in the unorganised sector would help the workforce in coming years. Provoking the BJP, he said terrorism and politics should not be mixed. Predictably, the DMK used the opportunity to attract attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. ?We have a blood relation with them,? DMK member A Krishnaswamy said seeking a political solution to the ethnic problem in the island nation.