The Hindu : Debate brings out skeletons of dead promises

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003

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Debate brings out skeletons of dead promises

By Our New Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI AUG. 19. The two-day debate on the no-confidence motion moved by the Opposition against the Vajpayee Government may have ended with a whimper, as expected, but the arguments on the two sides did help to bring to full view the skeletons of dead promises and the sins of omission and commission, past and present.

The Opposition tried to hoist the Government with its own petard, quoting extensively from the "promises" made to the people in the National Democratic Alliance manifesto of 1999. Four years later those promises remained on paper.

As for the treasury benches they often sidestepped the Opposition's "charges" to remind the Congress of all its misdeeds over the five decades that it ruled the country — the Emergency, corruption, toppling State Governments and all.

The NDA promise of a "seven to eight per cent" growth rate translated into a 4.7 per cent growth rate today when in 1995-96, the last year of the last Congress Government, it was 6.7 per cent, Congress MP, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, said. Domestic savings dropped and the promise of a "hunger-free India" led to starvation deaths in several States. Above all, the emphasis on "security" was exposed by the unspent defence budget of Rs. 24,000 crores and terrorist attacks on temples, Amarnath and Vaishno Devi pilgrims — even army camps were not safe any more.

He charged the NDA with denigrating Constitutional institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission, the Election Commission and now even the Public Accounts Committee.

Rebutting the nine charges made by Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, yesterday, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, stood for well over an hour through numerous interruptions to narrate the Government's achievements. First of all, the main "achievement'' of the Government was that it had survived, disproving the Congress claim that a non-Congress government, especially a coalition government, could not survive a full term.

Zero queues for telephone and gas connections, six new hospitals like the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, success in warding off the dreaded SARS disease, new highways, and finally, she pointed to Pokhran as evidence of an independent foreign policy.

But a little later, the Nationalist Congress Party leader, P.A. Sangma, expanded on the Opposition charge-sheet: the promised "thrust on employment generation" and the NDA slogan of berozgari hatao had resulted in a shocking unemployment rate of 17 to 20 per cent among the educated youth, he said sarcastically.

`Desperate move'

The Government found unstinted support from its allies, the DMK, the TDP, the Shiv Sena and qualified support from the BSP. Questioning the rationale for the no-confidence motion at this juncture when the past four years had provided several opportunities for the use of this "brahmashastra" (ultimate weapon), the TDP leader, K. Yerran Naidu, described the Congress-sponsored move as a "desperate" act which had no clarity of purpose.

Mr. Naidu blamed the Congress for usurping power of States, speaking in two voices on disinvestment, and asked the party to spell its policy on power reforms, but not before indirectly commenting on the BJP's `mandir' politics when he quoted the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, to point out that what will be remembered is not how many temples and mosques are built but the level of economic growth achieved.

T.R. Balu (DMK) castigated the Opposition for bringing a no-confidence motion that lacked "vision and direction". And taking advantage of the AIADMK's decision to refrain from voting, Mr. Balu sought to portray his party as the more reliable ally of the BJP.

"You can depend on us," he said. He praised the Prime Minister and lauded the Government for lower inflation and increasing foreign exchange reserves and ushering in the telecom revolution.

Chandrakhant Khaire (Shiv Sena) felt that there was no need to bring a no-confidence motion and warned the Opposition that it would not succeed in making Sonia Gandhi the Prime Minister.

Rashid Alvi (BSP) clarified that though his party had decided to oppose the no-confidence motion, when it came to the question of a uniform civil code, Babri Masjid or Gujarat , his party had its own view.

The Opposition attack got a big boost from Priyaranjan Dasmunshi (Congress) who charged the Government with "mal-performance and corruption".

In a hard-hitting speech, he asked the Prime Minister to probe defence deals and find out the name of the facilitator of the French defence technology manufacturer CSF Thomson, who was supplying equipment to both India and Pakistan.

The Congress chief whip also attacked the Prime Minister for shifting his stand on vital issues and of resorting to poetry to get out of tricky situations.

He referred to how the Prime Minister had spoken in favour of building the Ram Mandir at the funeral of Mahant Paramhans in Ayodhya and said something else at the Red Fort.

"It is all very well to be a poet, but one must choose in favour of following the raj dharma". And why did the Prime Minister maintain silence when the former U.S. President, Bill Clinton, said it was under American pressure that Pakistan withdrew from Kargil?

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Debate brings out skeletons of dead promises