Hitting out at the 'India Shining' campaign, the Congress said the country would 'feel good' only when it is rid of the Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government.
The party on Thursday released a 'charge sheet' against the NDA government accusing Prime Minister Vajpayee of 'flip-flops' and lording over a scam-tainted regime.
Senior leader Pranab Mukherjee, who heads the Congress' Manifesto Committee, released the 55-page document titled 'Vajpayee Government: A Saga of sins, scams and shame' in Delhi. It aims at taking the sheen off the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition's 'India Shining' campaign
Mukherjee and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit wondered how anyone could talk of 'India Shining' when in Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh alone 2,009 farmers had committed suicide unable to repay their debt.
"They (people) have seen through the doublespeak of Vajpayee. They want a government that is honest, consistent and which works. The Congress party will provide such a government," the charge sheet alleged.
In the 55-page document, which is based on the nine-point indictment by Sonia Gandhi of the NDA government when she had moved a no-confidence motion on August 18, the party devoted as many as four pages on the 'flip-flops' of Vajpayee on various issues, including Ayodhya, Muslims and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"I don't think there is something like a Atal factor in the coming polls. Despite the tremendous buildup over the personality of Prime Minister Vajpayee, the BJP could get only 180 seats in the last Lok Sabha polls. We had refused to form the government when we got 195 seats," Mukherjee said.
In Kolkata, another senior party leader Arjun Singh accused Vajpayee of 'totally lacking clarity on issues and programmes' and dismissed him being a factor in the coming polls. "A towering personality like Vajpayee has a feet of clay," Singh quipped adding that the Prime Minister is 'an epitome of inconsistency'.
Defence Minister George Fernandes is the other NDA leader singled out for attack in the charge sheet, which devotes 11 pages to defence-related scams, including the Tehelka expose, Kargil cess and the purchase of coffins during the Kargil conflict.
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Other points in the charge sheet:
The NDA government's economic agenda is partisan, it communalised the polity, sought to destroy the social fabric of India and political expediency was its guiding ideology.
Its promises 'have turned out to be false, its real agenda stand exposed'.
The security of this country was compromised. Tehelka and other scams demonstrated that the NDA government was immersed neck-deep in corruption.
On Prime Minister Vajpayee's claim of generating 8.4 million jobs: "Vajpayee and his government have chosen to juggle figures rather than present a comprehensive employment generation plan."
The NDA government has no plan to revive public investments in Agriculture.
The country lost Rs 49,057 crore in various scams, including Tehelka, UTI, BALCO, HUDCO, Coffin Scam, during the six-year rule of the NDA government. Even former BJP president Bangaru Laxman was caught on tape accepting cash and asking for further payment in US dollars.
Why Defence Minister George Fernandes was re-inducted into the Union Cabinet even before the Phukan Commission probing allegations of corruption in defence deals had submitted its report.
Send a message to Congress president Sonia Gandhi
Accusing the NDA coalition of 'loot and plunder', the charge sheet said the Centre has raised Rs 11,260.23 crore from the sale of 31 PSUs, including 18 hotels of the Indian Tourism Development Corporation and three of the Hotel Corporation of India, to its 'favourites'.
It touches upon the plight of farmers, the health sector, discrimination in allocation of food grains to states suffering from drought, welfare of SCs/STs and the Woman's Reservation Bill.
The Vajpayee government communalised education system by pushing 'RSS ideology and views into textbooks'.
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