Comparison Between BJP/NDA And UPA

Chapter 3- Findings

The BJP/NDA’s Monumental Failures And The Success Of Secular UPA

In the five years at the centre, the BJP-led NDA government has massively increased unemployment by economic policies that have thrown lakhs of workers out of employment in agriculture, the handlooms sector, other non-farm rural employment and manufacturing and mining.

It failed to ensure the devolution of functions, functionaries and finances to the panchayats and municipalities, thus limiting the potential for employment generation by elected local bodies. It also caused stagnation of investment and growth in small-scale and cottage industry and agriculture, which are the main sources of employment in the country. It generated employment reduction schemes in government services and the public sector. It mounted an ideological assault on the public sector, particularly profitable public enterprises which have been the single-most important avenue of organized employment since Independence. It also destabilized and lowered growth rates, ending the steady rise in growth rates year after year, climaxing in nearly seven per cent annual growth, which characterized the 1992-97 growth performance. It lowered annual average growth over the last five years to much below six per cent, indeed as low as four per cent in two of the five years, accompanied by wild swings in the pendulum of growth. The BLP-led Government caused acute distress for kisans and khet mazdoors, leading to an unprecedented number of kisan suicides across the country and growing destitution among khet mazdoors. All their policies in-turn weakened national security by not spending huge amounts of money running into thousands of crores of rupees allocated for modernization of our armed forces which also damaged social harmony by deliberately inciting and sponsoring a communal carnage in Gujarat, by glorifying violence against missionaries, by encouraging viciously communal and fascist organizations like the VHP / Bajrang Dal to spread hate. It also subverted school curricula by rewriting history books to spread religious hatred and eroded the autonomy of prestigious intellectual institutions by taking away their professional independence. It destroyed probity in administration by encouraging corruption and fomenting scams in defense, telecom, DDA, allotment of petrol pumps, stock markets and UTI. It denigrated key institutions of parliamentary democracy like the CAG, NHRC, CEC, PAC and the CVC whenever their reports have indicted the government for its corruption and inefficiency and grossly misused the CBI. All this undermined the independence of our foreign policy by not speaking up forcefully against the marginalisation of the United Nations, by not asserting India's position on world issues effectively and by constant flip-flops in our relations with Pakistan.

The Prime Minister has displayed a singular lack of consistency and clarity on major national issues, he indulged in double-speak, whether it be Ayodhya and on the preservation of secularism; the carnage in Gujarat; relations with Pakistan; negotiations with different groups in Jammu and Kashmir; and links with the RSS.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister took office not withstanding his being arraigned before a court of law and the Liberhan Commission for his role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He presided over shocking security lapses in the nation’s capital and elsewhere. A few years ago, he grandly announced that he would come out with a White Paper on ISI Activities in India. Till today, the nation is waiting for that expose. It is a matter of record that most of the serious terrorist attacks in the past three-four years have not been investigated by the Home Ministry and accountability fixed, while the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister keep on chanting their firm resolve to combat the menace of terrorism at all costs - a resolve that is completely hollow.

The External Affairs Minister personally escorted three hard-core terrorists to safety to Kandahar in Afghanistan. These terrorists then continued their wanton killings of innocent men, women and children in J&K.

The BJP had gone to the polls on a so-called “feel good” factor. This was bogus. The reality is that under Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the average annual rate of economic growth was lower than in the 1980s and much lower than during 1992-96 when the Congress was in power. The rate of both public and private investment declined over the period that the BJP-led NDA government has been in office. It is this lack of investment demand that caused the build-up of foreign exchange reserves and that resulted in the fall in interest rates both factors identified by the BJP as its “achievements”. The BJP claimed that its highway development programme implemented by the National Highway Authority of India(NHAI) is unprecedented. The truth is that the NHAI was established by the Congress government in 1995. Most of the plans had been finalized before the Congress demitted office. All that the BJP-led NDA government has done is turn the national highways already built by the Congress governments of the past, into express highways. Moreover, the new highways being built are not free; they can be used only after payment. Highways built under earlier Congress regimes during 1950-90 were all free and anybody could use them.

It was during the term of the BJP-led NDA government that the stock market and UTI scams took place, as detailed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee that has fixed the eighteen months commencing from the swearing in of the NDA government in October 1999 as the period of the scams. The scams wiped out the hard-earned savings of crores of middle class families, senior citizens, pensioners and widows. The epicenter of the scams lay in cooperative banks based in the constituencies of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Tehelka video film showed the BJP President and other NDA leaders taking bribes. The Defence Minister who resigned in the wake of this expose saying he would not return till his name was cleared rejoined office while the enquiry was on.

The BJP and its cohorts orchestrated the horrific communal carnage in Gujarat after the tragic events at Godhra. The RSS is indicted in most commissions of inquiry into communal riots. The Supreme Court has pulled up the Gujarat government repeatedly for its complicity in the communal carnage of 2001.

The BJP fostered corruption to an unprecedented degree with scams after scams being revealed. The BJP’s economic policies sharpened the divide between the rich and the poor, between the fortunate few and the disadvantaged many, between rural and urban India, between different regions of the country.