Advani starts 'weak PM' campaign

NEW DELHI: With the government facing popular ire over graft charges and price rise, BJP leader LK Advani resumed his "weak prime minister" campaign against Manmohan Singh. In an unrelenting offensive on Thursday, he compared the UPA government with a communist regime where the party president is more important than the PM.


The senior BJP leader said: "I have never seen such a weak prime minister." Advani, who recalled that he had expressed his "respect" for Singh in 2002, said he felt "sympathy" for him and his government. Advani recollected his days as a journalist in Jaipur where he had learnt during a visit of two Russian leaders that in the hierarchy of a Communist country, the party leader was given more significance than the prime minister.

"Here now, it's the party president who has more importance, not the prime minister. It has become a communist state," Advani said, hinting that Sonia Gandhi called the shots in the government. Addressing the BJP youth wing's Rashtriya Ekta Yatra which is headed towards Srinagar, he cautioned the government against making any "wrong" moves on J&K.


"This government is passing through the worst crisis of its entire tenure. At a time like this any wrong step on Kashmir will not be tolerated by the people," Advani said. He referred to issues like 2G spectrum, CWG and Adarsh housing. Slamming the prime minister for calling his demand to get back black money as an "election stunt" and "irresponsible" in 2009, he said the Supreme Court has observed that the stashing away of the money in foreign banks was plunder of the country.