UPA government a private company and Manmohan Singh is the CEO: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has said that the United Progressive Alliance government was like a private company, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the CEO while its owner was "somebody else."

In an apparent reference to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the 'family' which had power was not accountable, while the prime minister was becoming 'invisible'. "The structure of the government is rare in the whole world. In any democratic country, the prime minister is the leader of the country. Here you are running the show on the structure of a private company. You have a professional CEO and the owner is somebody else," Jaitley said at a party gathering in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Whenever there was any controversy, Singh claimed that he was not aware. "There is no power with the leadership of the government. There is office but no authority. There is another leadership who has power but no accountability. And that is why this leadership keeps itself away from the responsibilities as per convenience," he said. "In this kind of a structure, a Gandhi can never commit a mistake...A government cannot run like this. The prime minister is getting invisible," he said.

Jaitley also demanded the resignation of ministers and officials responsible for the police crackdown at Ramlila Maidan, claiming there was no justification for the teargas and lathicharge on unarmed people, who were holding a peaceful protest. "In all my life, I have never seen anything like this... the prime minister's statement was most unfortunate. I want to ask him what is the justification for resorting to tear gas shelling to a crowd in a closed enclosure. The official or the minister who had decided about it does not have authority to remain in office," he said.

Dubbing the government as 'headless chicken', Jaitely said: "One view was that there should be a political settlement of Ramdev's agitation through talks. That is why four ministers including Pranab Mukherjee went to the airport. The other view was to handle it through police and by use of force. There was fight among the two."