Training his guns on UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi for wielding more power than the Prime Minister, BJP leader L K Advani said the UPA’s three years in power had shown up a government lacking in credibility and cohesion.
“Here is a government that is headed by a non-prime minister, run by a person who is not accountable to the Parliament and surviving on the life-support system provided by parties that behave more like the Opposition,” the BJP leader said.
Mr Advani told a news conference in Goa that no honest stock-taking could be expected of a Government being run by an “imperious and dynastic leadership that thinks it is its birth-right to rule India”.
He blamed Dr Manmohan Singh for “demeaning and devaluing the office of Prime Minister by demonstrating that the real power in the UPA government is wielded not by him but by 10 Janpath”.
Mr Advani said the BJP’s biggest success had been in converting India into a bipolar polity with the Congress on one side and the BJP on the other, and the smaller parties having to chose which side to align with.
Glossing over the BJP’s defeat in UP, Mr Advani said the BJP was focussed on elections in Goa and Gujarat later this year.
For Goa, Mr Advani made clear that his party was keeping its options open for post-poll tie-ups.
The BJP had said earlier it would have no understanding with any regional outfits in the event of a hung assembly.