Date:26/02/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/02/26/stories/2004022606630400.htm

New Delhi

`Centre has done nothing for poor'

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 25. The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president, Prem Singh, today accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA Government of not doing a single thing for the benefit of the common people and coining the "feel good'' and "India Shining'' slogans to hide its faults and befool the masses.

Speaking at a workers' convention organised by the Karol Bagh District Congress Committee under the leadership of unit president, Darshna Ram Kumar, the Delhi Congress chief said while people only have tales of "feel bad factor'' to tell, the Government was squandering away crores of rupees through the electronic media and newspapers to create a false impression.

Asserting that people have read through the designs, Mr Singh said they will teach the "communal'' party and its allies a befitting lesson in the Lok Sabha elections for betraying their trust as in its balance sheet for the past five years, the Central Government only has scams and scandals to show.

The DPCC president also questioned BJP's loyalty by alleging that the party had aided and helped the British rulers when the Congress was fighting for freedom of the country. He added that the BJP had also tried to tarnish the image of former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in the Bofors case. But now, he said, "the clean chit given by the court has vindicated the stand of the Congress and the BJP was trying to run away from the people it had misled for the past 17 years''.

But for the Bofors gun, Mr Singh claimed, India would have even cut a sorry figure in the Kargil war. This war, he said, was the result of the incompetence of the Central Government, which did not know what was happening on the porous borders of the country.

The AICC general secretary, Oscar Fernandes, in his address said the prices of essential commodities have risen sharply in the last five years making the lives of ordinary people miserable. Stating that no one was spared by the misrule, he said people were waiting for the Lok Sabha elections to remove the BJP from power.