Date:09/11/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/11/09/stories/2002110906170100.htm

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Set your house in order: BJP

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI NOV. 8. The Bharatiya Janata Party today responded to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's attack on the National Democratic Alliance with the advice that she should focus on getting her Chief Ministers to deliver good governance in their States rather than indulge in rhetoric about the Vajpayee Government.

"Ms. Gandhi should have utilised the Congress Chief Ministers' conclave to take stock of their performance,'' the BJP spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, said.

He also listed what was wrong in several Congress-ruled States. He said that in Rajasthan, the Congress should focus on starvation deaths, in Madhya Pradesh, Ms. Gandhi should find out why development was at a standstill and starvation deaths were being reported, in Karnataka, the Chief Minister had cut a sorry figure before the Supreme Court and his own people (on the Cauvery waters issue), in Maharashtra, its Government was "barely surviving'' and was full of inner contradictions, and in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress-PDP alliance had started its term with contradictions, Mr. Jaitley said.

His said Ms. Gandhi should "pull up her Chief Ministers rather than indulge in empty rhetoric against the NDA Government.''