BJP leaders liken UPA to a car with no driver

New Delhi: The Congress-led coalition at the Centre was on Tuesday likened to a 'motorcar' whose brakes were with the Left parties while it was riding without a driver.

Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh told the party's National Council that earlier he used to believe that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in the driver's seat, but has now realised that he is not.

"The UPA is like a motorcar. The steering and accelerator is with 10, Janpath while the brakes are with Communists. Earlier I though Manmohan Singh was in the driver's seat but I have come to know that he is not," Singh said. 10, Janpath is the official residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Another senior leader Arun Shourie was also caustic about the UPA Government remarking that its posture on the nuclear deal showed that it had 'taken helplessness to new heights'. He was referring to government's decision to accept the US condition to open two-third of India's nuclear plants (14 out of 22) for international inspection.

Shourie said the US, UK, France, Russia and China have opened only five plants out of 107 for such inspection, but India alone decided to open 14 of its nuclear plants.

"These countries were even accorded prior notice facility for IAEA inspections. We don't have that," he said.

Advani expressed the possibility of the Congress going in for Lok Sabha polls along with those of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to cash in on the supposed anti-incumbency in the BJP-ruled states.

"It is not enough that we do well in Lok Sabha elections, but we should strive to do the best in every single election till the Lok Sabha polls," Advani said, driving home the point that party-run governments will have to go the extra mile in the coming days.

While no leader spoke of Pramod Mahajan, partymen in private did speak of the late leader known for his organisational skills and whom Vajpayee had described as Lakshman with Advani as Ram.

Advani suggested that in 2004 polls, the party was not defeated as the difference between the seats won by it and that by the Congress was marginal. "2004 setback was not that big for the party, it was for the allies. It became an aggregate of the state results," he added.

In his hour-long concluding address, the Leader of the Opposition put the blame squarely on the Congress for the current plight of Muslims and sought to project recent moves of the Government for their uplift as only votebank politics.

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The political resolution adopted by the Council accused the Government of practising divisive vote-bank politics by incentivising conversion of Dalits to Islam and Christianity and going soft on terrorism.

The party resolved to further strengthen the NDA, but the deliberations did not specify any party though senior leader Sushma Swaraj asked local units to be prepared for alliances.

Advani, veteran of many an election battle, said that the party needed to factor in the anti-incumbency against MLAs, MPs and ministers while devising poll strategy.

He emphasised that it was not enough that the BJP was a party with a difference but "our political activists should also be a politician with a difference and MLAs, MPs and ministers should also be with a difference."

Swaraj said it was impossible to win elections without alliances and Advani suggested that the NDA can make it in the coming polls as BJP and its allies had won 361 of the Lok Sabha seats in one time or another in the last 20 years.

The refrain in the political resolution was that "India needs an effective leader (and) India has suffered because of an indecisive Prime Minister. It needs a strong government."