Tweet
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Sunday renewed his “weakest PM” chorus against Manmohan Singh and rated him even below IK Gujaral, HD Deve Gowda and Chandrashekhar, “who exercised the full authority of PM’s post despite having only a handful of MPs”.
Advani’s broadside against PM came on a day Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar defended his yatra saying the arrest of BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka could not prevent the veteran from speaking or campaigning against corruption.
The Congress had earlier attempted to take the fizz out of Advani’s campaign by asking the senior BJP leader to look within his Government in Karnataka, where former Chief Minister Yeddyurappa had been arrested on corruption charges.
“The condition of the (UPA) Government is very bad. Sometimes, I take pity on Manmohan Singh though I had respect for him at one time,” Advani told a meeting at Saoner, near Nagpur, as his anti-corruption yatra entered Maharashtra on Monday.
Advani felt that calling Singh weak was not an abuse. “When I criticised him by calling him ‘weak’ before the 2009 elections, people asked me why I said that because he was a good and honest man. Calling him weak is not an abuse. But if the Prime Minister thinks that he cannot do anything till 10 Janpath gives its clearance, it does not behove him,” Advani said.
On reaching Nagpur, home to RSS headquarters, the senior BJP leader reminded the UPA Government about its inaction on the issue of black money. Referring to Manmohan Singh’s recent comments on the Right to Information Act, Advani said the whole country knew that the RTI brought transparency in the system and even brought the differences between two important Cabinet Ministers (Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram) before the public.
Claiming that his yatra was receiving tremendous response from the people, Advani also mentioned that when he had taken the decision to set off on his sixth yatra in 21 years there were some “associates who tried to dissuade” him.
“Don’t go on a yatra they said, there are new methods of communication that exist. Television has reached every home, Internet and other IT devices have made communication so simple, why then work so hard, why then move from village to village for forty days on the rath,” Advani quoted them as telling him. “I replied that in my experience of past six yatras that even now in India, the way a message can reach people via a yatra cannot reach in any other manner.”
Advani said that in the first seven days of his yatra he felt that the response of the people was increasing which gave him the feeling that he was riding a “rollercoaster” that was gaining momentum.
Apart from BJP president Nitin Gadkari, party leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde came to Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border to receive Advani’s yatra. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accompanied Advani to see him off on the border.
Advani’s broadside against PM came on a day Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar defended his yatra saying the arrest of BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka could not prevent the veteran from speaking or campaigning against corruption.
The Congress had earlier attempted to take the fizz out of Advani’s campaign by asking the senior BJP leader to look within his Government in Karnataka, where former Chief Minister Yeddyurappa had been arrested on corruption charges.
“The condition of the (UPA) Government is very bad. Sometimes, I take pity on Manmohan Singh though I had respect for him at one time,” Advani told a meeting at Saoner, near Nagpur, as his anti-corruption yatra entered Maharashtra on Monday.
Advani felt that calling Singh weak was not an abuse. “When I criticised him by calling him ‘weak’ before the 2009 elections, people asked me why I said that because he was a good and honest man. Calling him weak is not an abuse. But if the Prime Minister thinks that he cannot do anything till 10 Janpath gives its clearance, it does not behove him,” Advani said.
On reaching Nagpur, home to RSS headquarters, the senior BJP leader reminded the UPA Government about its inaction on the issue of black money. Referring to Manmohan Singh’s recent comments on the Right to Information Act, Advani said the whole country knew that the RTI brought transparency in the system and even brought the differences between two important Cabinet Ministers (Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram) before the public.
Claiming that his yatra was receiving tremendous response from the people, Advani also mentioned that when he had taken the decision to set off on his sixth yatra in 21 years there were some “associates who tried to dissuade” him.
“Don’t go on a yatra they said, there are new methods of communication that exist. Television has reached every home, Internet and other IT devices have made communication so simple, why then work so hard, why then move from village to village for forty days on the rath,” Advani quoted them as telling him. “I replied that in my experience of past six yatras that even now in India, the way a message can reach people via a yatra cannot reach in any other manner.”
Advani said that in the first seven days of his yatra he felt that the response of the people was increasing which gave him the feeling that he was riding a “rollercoaster” that was gaining momentum.
Apart from BJP president Nitin Gadkari, party leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde came to Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border to receive Advani’s yatra. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accompanied Advani to see him off on the border.
