BJP demands Lok Sabha polls this year

Upping the ante against UPA, BJP today demanded that Lok Sabha elections be held this year itself as "the country can ill-afford" a "paralysed" government at this moment of crisis.
A BJP delegation, led by its Parliamentary Party chief L K Advani, met President Pranab Mukherjee and petitioned him to end the "prevailing uncertainty" by advising the government to seek a fresh mandate at the earliest.
Elections, the party said, should not be held later than the state elections due in three months.
"The country can ill-afford at this moment of crisis a government which is paralysed, a Prime Minister who never speaks, a Finance Ministry who wrongly blames his predecessor who is unable to defend himself, a supreme leader who does not care about where the money will come from and a bureaucracy which is frozen and unable to act," BJP said in its memorandum.

Talking to reporters later, Advani said Finance Minister P Chidambaram was blaming Mukherjee, who was his predecessor before being elected President, for the mess in which the country's economy is.
"If the country is rid of the present government and people are given a fresh opportunity to elect a new government it would be in the best interest of the country," he said.

Advani said BJP was aware that the government is unlikely to listen to the President if asked to hold early polls but they would be under public pressure if Mukherjee makes the move.
The delegation included all top party leaders in Parliament, including Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Murli Manohar Joshi and Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The main Opposition party said the government's "reckless policies" have ruined the fundamentals of the economy and freefall of the rupee is only a symptom of the deeper malaise affecting it.