After Manmohan Singh, BJP may attack government on finance bills

NEW DELHI: The hardening of lines between the BJP and the Congress following Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s attack on the Opposition while defending the government over its management of the economy appears to have diminished chances of a compromise on pension and insurance bills.

BJP leaders, who rejected the PM’s claim that he had tried to work with the Opposition, said they had never heard from him on policymaking or on the decisions required to resuscitate the economy. “There was the spectacle of a finance minister blaming the crisis on his predecessor. There was also the spectacle of the prime minister blaming everything but his government for the mess,” said former finance minister Yashwant Sinha.

His colleagues in BJP said a bipartisan situation could evolve only if the government made a serious attempt at it. “Arun Jaitley was right when he said the government is democratic only when it is in distress. We expected the PM to take a page out of the Vajpayee playbook and forge a consensus. But his statements clearly showed that he was not interested in negotiating with the Opposition,” said BJP general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan.

BJP said compromise with the government had become difficult as there was “repudiation” of the government and the prime minister. “Industry leaders are blaming leadership deficit for the current crisis. The common man is agitated over the impact on the problem on their lives,” he said.

Analysts say the government should have attempted to work out compromises on some fronts. In a highly polarised political space, there is bound to be less willingness to do anything to give other side victory. In the event of government managers failing to soothe the ruffled feathers of the Opposition, the remaining part of the session may not be able to transact legislative business that is critical for the government.

BJP, meanwhile, has upped the ante against efforts to paste the blame for the economic mess on President Pranab Mukherjee’s handling of the department when he was finance minister.

During their meeting with the President on Friday, BJP leaders said that they were not in agreement with the government’s claim that financial expansion happened during his tenure as the finance minister.

“Through two supplementary bills passed before Mukherjee took over as the finance minister, the Centre had increased government expenditure by Rs 2 lakh crore. Sinha, who was part of the BJP delegation that met the President, said: “Anyone familiar with budget-making knows that only two people are privy to the exercise — the finance minister and the prime minister.

The FM takes the draft budget speech to the PM and the latter goes through every word written in it. The PM is equally guilty for the fiscal expansion and retrospective tax.”