New Delhi, Aug 18 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of making an excuse of "lack of political consensus" for "governance deficit" of his government and claimed that NDA-ruled states were in the forefront of economic development.
Inaugurating a meeting of party chief ministers and deputy chief ministers to discuss the "impact of economic slowdown", party president Nitin Gadkari launched a scathing attack on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and said it had "no leader, no answerable person".
"They don't have vision or determination. The rating agencies from all over the world have downgraded the credibility of the country due to this government's economic policies. Not only in our country but all over the world, the UPA government has lost its credibility," he said.
Gadkari said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was going down while "governance deficit and policy paralysis, GD-PP, is constantly increasing" and economic reforms have been "pending over the months".
"All thee time the prime minister makes excuses of lack of political consensus for no development," he said referring to Manmohan Singh's address to the country on the Independence Day.
"We have asked many times how this reason can be held responsible for infrastructure development to agricultural development. These facts have been exposed many times that the state governments maintained the financial discipline and management but our economist prime minister has not been able to do the same for our country," Gadkari said.
He said when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) left office in 2004, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 17.8 percent but it had gone up to 68.05 percent.
"This has made India the worst amongst the BRIC countries," referring to the four-nation grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Noting that the way to Delhi goes through the states, Gadkari said that his party needs to convert its "success of governance into political success".
Addressing media persons later, party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar gave the main credit for country's present growth rate to BJP-ruled states.
"The present 6 percent GDP rate is maintained because of the growth in BJP-ruled states. All our states have GDP of 10 percent and above," he said.
In his speech, Gadkari also said NDA-ruled states had performed better than those ruled by UPA in handling unemployment and had spent more money on education.
He said some NDA and party-ruled states faced more challenges due to number of people living below the poverty line but they were successfully moving forward.
"In the case of the increase in state domestic product, the BJP-ruled states of Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Jharkhand are ahead in the first six states," he said.
The day-long meeting is discussing response of NDA-ruled states to economic downturn, deficit of rain and "discrimination" from the central government.
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