BJP sinking ship, says NCP's Tariq Anwar

Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and MP Tariq Anwar on Friday termed the BJP a sinking ship, saying no one was ready to sail in it.

The MP, who supported the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, said if the current situation, as the BJP claims, is like 'Ram Raj', then he wondered what the 'Ravan Raj' would be.

"The government had come to power with a slogan of 'sabka saath, sabka vikas', but today the government is supporting no one, and vikas (development) is absent," he said.

"In the last four years of the BJP government, unemployment has risen, farmers are unhappy, women are unsafe and minorities and weaker sections are being threatened. The prices of petrol-diesel are going up. The government has also failed to frame sound foreign policies," he added.

The MP from Katihar in Bihar also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah spent most of the last four years attacking the Gandhi-Nehru family. The government is using investigating agencies for political gains, he added.

"Instead of attacking the Gandhi-Nehru family, they should have improved the situation in the country. All of Modi's speech is about what the Congress has done wrong or has not done in 60 years," he said.

Speaking about Home Minister Rajnath Singh's remarks on mob lynching, he said: "His clarification appeared like a silent support to it. If this government was serious about the issue, 200 deaths would not have taken place due to lynching," he said.

The BJP leadership, he said, is limited to two people. "This is the reason why those who supported the BJP are nowhere to be seen," he said, adding the Telugu Desam Party, which once supported the BJP, has driftd away from it.

"The Shiv Sena too is not seen anywhere around. Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U head Nitish Kumar has also shown his defiance."

--IANS

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