White Paper in Parliament, why BJP is keeping guns trained on Cong: ‘Regional allies not permanent foes’

From attacking the INDIA bloc as “ghamandia (arrogant)” and calling it “INDI” alliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has trained his guns exclusively on the Congress in his recent speeches in Parliament. And on Thursday, the BJP government released a “White Paper” that was yet another scathing criticism of the Congress-led UPA government’s handling of the economy during its tenure from 2004 to 2014.

In scathing criticism of the UPA government’s management of the economy, the document said the UPA government failed miserably to facilitate economic activities. “Instead the UPA Government created hurdles that held back the economy. It basked in the afterglory of the lagged effects of the reforms of the Vajpayee-led NDA government and benign global conditions and proceeded to exploit the resultant fast economic growth for narrow political purposes without much concern for long-term economic consequences. The result was a mountain of bad loans, a high fiscal deficit despite much of it being hidden, a high current account deficit, double-digit inflation for five years which hit the pockets of many Indians and membership of the club of “Fragile Five” in 2013,” it said.

The document went on to say, “They (UPA) not only failed to impart dynamism into the economy but also robbed the economy of it such that our industrialists went on record stating that they would rather invest abroad than in India. To drive investors away is easy but to win them back is hard. The UPA government also demonstrated that it is easier to hurt the economy than it is to help it. They inherited a healthy economy and bequeathed an enfeebled one to us. We have restored its vitality.”

While the document focused on the economy, Modi in his speeches in the two