‘Send frail PM for pilgrimage, PC to jail’

‘Send frail PM for pilgrimage, PC to jail’

BJP president Nitin Gadkari has prescribed pilgrim status for “frail” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and penitentiary for his Cabinet colleague P Chidambaram.

Launching a vitriolic attack on the Congress and its UPA allies, including the Trinamool Congress for sustaining a scam-tainted Government, the BJP president on Wednesday told a Kolkata rally that the Union Home Minister should have been sent to jail along with A Raja his former Cabinet colleague and prime accused in 2G scam as he was equally guilty for promoting the jailed DMK leader.

“We have an infirm and uninformed Prime Minister who always feigns ignorance whenever asked to comment on a scam. If he is so ignorant about things happening around him and under his nose then what is doing there? Why does he not go to a pilgrimage!” Gadkari wondered holding the Singh and his UPA allies including the Trinamool Congress equally responsible for sustaining corrupt and inefficient Government.

The BJP president was addressing a party rally in Kolkata organised to protest escalating prices, corruption, FDI in retail and faulty policies pursued by the Mamata Bannered Government.

Vowing to bring back the entire black money stashed away by the Indians in foreign banks “when we come back to power” Gadkari wondered “what prevents the UPA from disclosing the names of the 700 Indians who have stashed away black money in foreign banks and whose names are already with the Government.”

“I have requested this seemingly helpless and frail PM to make public the names of these people but he will not do it because many of the Congress leaders and their acquaintances figure in the group of 700,” he thundered adding “when we come to power we will make the names public and bring back the money with which we will construct rural roads, provide drinking water and power.”

Alleging that the Government was backing scamsters who had stashed away more than Rs 25 lakh crore of taxpayers’ money in foreign banks the BJP leader said UPA was sent to give good governance but it has given the people who voted it to power scams, inflation and hunger.

Pooh-poohing the Congress for its dynastic set up where eligibility for party presidentship sprang only from Nehru-Gandhi surmanes Gadkari said it was time for a “mature democracy like India to shun a party led by a mother and a child only.”

Taking a dig at Bengal PM Mamata Banerjee for her “duplicity” the BJP president said “it she threatens to withdraw support in public but backs all the UPA Government’s anti-people decisions in private” adding the people would soon read through her ways.

Lodge a broadside against the UPA for introducing FDI in retail at a time when Parliament was preparing to debate on issues like scams and inflation, BJP MP Chandan Mitra said, “this was a diversionary tactic taken by the Government to divert the attention of the nation from critical issues like corruption and price hike.” As the UPA never moved a twig for free “I am sure huge amount of money changed hands before Government allowed FDI in retail.”