Presidents Speech Glossed Over Failures: Vajpayee
Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday described the Presidents address to Parliament as an attempt to project the governments failures as achievements.
The address said the number of people living below the poverty line is 320 million which is twenty million more than last year, Vajpayee pointed out, arguing that this demonstrated an increase in poverty. Vajpayee also pointed out that the address made no mention of the controversial bills like the Lok Pal which were opposed by various political parties at the Speakers meeting on Wednesday.
The partys deputy Lok Sabha speaker Jaswant Singh was more severe in criticising the address. The address was confused and uninspiring, he said. Singh strongly objected to deletion of a sentence in the address, which apparently related to failures of the previous government.
The government should explain the reasons for it being shy in pointing at the failures of the previous government Singh said.