massively increased unemployment by economic policies that have

destabilized and lowered growth rates,

caused acute distress for kisans and khet mazdoors, leading to an unprecedented number of kisan suicides across the country and growing destitution among khet mazdoors;

weakened national security by not spending huge amounts of money running into thousands of crores of rupees allocated for modernization of our armed forces;

subverted school curricula by rewriting history books to spread religious hatred and eroded the autonomy of prestigious intellectual institutions by taking away their professional independence;

destroyed probity in administration by encouraging corruption and fomenting scams in defense, telecom, DDA, allotment of petrol pumps, stock markets and UTI;

denigrated key institutions of parliamentary democracy like the CAG, NHRC, CEC, PAC and the CVC whenever their reports have indicted the government for its corruption and inefficiency and grossly misused the CBI;

undermined the independence of our foreign policy by not speaking up forcefully against the marginalisation of the United Nations, by not asserting India's position on world issues effectively and by constant flip-flops in our relations with Pakistan.

The Prime Minister has displayed a singular lack of consistency and clarity on major national issues, he has indulged in double-speak, whether it be

The Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister took office notwithstanding his being arraigned before a court of law and the Liberhan Commission for his role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He has presided over shocking security lapses in the nation’s capital and elsewhere. Four years ago, he grandly announced that he would come out with a White Paper on ISI Activities in India. Till today, the nation is waiting for that expose. It is a matter of record that most of the serious terrorist attacks in the past three-four years have not been investigated by the Home Ministry and accountability fixed, while the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister keep on chanting their firm resolve to combat the menace of terrorism at all costs - a resolve that is completely hollow.

The External Affairs Minister personally escorted three hard-core terrorists to safety to Kandahar in Afghanistan. These terrorists then continued their wanton killings of innocent men, women and children in J&K. Recently, the former head of Pakistan’s ISI has admitted that the terrorist escorted by Shri Jaswant Singh to Kandahar masterminded the attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001.

The BJP is going to the polls on a so-called “feel good” factor. This is bogus. The reality is that under Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the average annual rate of economic growth is lower than in the 1980s and much lower than during 1992-96 when the Congress was in power. The rate of both public and private investment has declined over the period that the BJP-led NDA government has been in office. It is this lack of investment demand that has caused the build-up of foreign exchange reserves and that has resulted in the fall in interest rates both factors identified by the BJP as its “achievements”. Moreover, low interest rates have benefited borrowers but have enormously hurt the interests of crores of savers and bank depositors who have seen their valuable savings dwindle in value. The BJP claims that its highway development programme implemented by the National Highway Authority of India NHAI) is unprecedented. The truth is that the NHAI was established by the Congress government in 1995. Most of the plans had been finalized before the Congress demitted office. All that the BJP-led NDA government has done is turn the national highways already built by the Congress governments of the past, into express highways. Moreover, the new highways being built are not free; they can be used only after payment. Highways built under earlier Congress regimes during 1950-90 were all free and anybody could use them.

It was during the term of the BJP-led NDA government that the stock market and UTI scams took place, as detailed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee that has fixed the eighteen months commencing from the swearing in of the NDA government in October 1999 as the period of the scams. The scams wiped out the hard-earned savings of crores of middle class families, senor citizens, pensioners and widows. The epicenter of the scams lay in cooperative banks based in the constituencies of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.

A video film showed the BJP President and other NDA leaders taking bribes. The Defence Minister who resigned in the wake of this expose saying he would not return till his name was cleared rejoined office while the enquiry was on and has been boycotted by the Opposition for this gross impropriety.