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In a scathing attack on the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday said its days were numbered.
Complete coverage of the no-confidence motion debate
Moving a no-confidence motion against the government in the Lok Sabha, she said the NDA government's tenure has been marred by failures on the defence front and mounting corruption.
She dubbed the government "incompetent, insensitive, irresponsible and brazenly corrupt" in her one-hour speech.
Facing frequent interruptions and tongue-in-cheek remarks from the Treasury benches in a packed House, Gandhi blamed the government for "blatantly undermining the independence of our foreign policy."
She asked the prime minister why his government was "impeding" the functioning of the Public Accounts Committee by refusing to give it access to the Chief Vigilance Commissioner's report examining the transactions relating to Operation Vijay, the military operation in Kargil.
The leader of the Opposition accused the government of colluding with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M) during the assembly election in Nagaland.
"Of course, we would like the underground to join mainstream politics with honour and dignity," she said, but added that this was not the right way to do it.
She also accused the NDA government of toppling the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh.
Sonia said the Vajpayee government failed to protect the lives of innocent people in the Gujarat riots.
"Those involved in the Godhra incident should not be shown any mercy... In the Best Bakery case the government remained silent because it suited its communal politics. Isn't it the duty of the prime minister to ensure that justice is done to all people?" she asked.
"It is a great shame. Are these people not human beings? Are they not sons and daughters of this country? Their right to live has been snatched from them," she said, amidst protests from ruling party members.
She accused the BJP leadership of using "cross-border terrorism" to divide people for narrow political ends to win votes.
She charged Prime Minister Vajpayee of finding a convenient excuse for not passing the Women's Reservation Bill by talking about a national consensus.
"If they had sought our assistance, they could have passed the Bill. Isn't that what you want Sushmaji?" she asked the minister for parliamentary affairs.
"Those opposing the bill -- Laloo Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav -- are on your side Soniaji," Swaraj replied.
Gandhi also criticised the NDA government for subverting school textbooks.
"Lessons on our national heroes have been replaced by lessons on some unknown people who had nothing to do with the freedom struggle," she said.
She reminded the House there was a furore when she alleged that the NDA government was a monumental corrupt government. She wanted to know what action the government had taken in the UTI scam.
"Crores of investors, poor pensioners and others were deprived of their lifetime of investments. Not a single person was held accountable. Maybe those responsible had access to higher-ups," she alleged.
She claimed the economy's growth rate has come down from 6.7% to 4.1% during the last year. Yet, she said, the NDA government has fixed a target rate of 8 %.
She reminded the prime minister that the number of unemployed is growing at an alarming rate.
"Prime Minister Vajpayee had promised one crore jobs every year. I would not like to remind him about his promises because he gets very irritated. Instead of giving jobs to unemployed youth all that the government is offering is voluntary retirement schemes. The present employment rate is just about 1% as against 2.7% earlier," she said.
She also reprimanded the NDA government for taking five years to constitute a National Commission for Farmers.
"Our farmers are under huge debt and this government has fixed 20 years to improve their lot," she added.
In an obvious attack on Defence Minister George Fernandes, who is in the eye of the storm over the PAC-CVC
issue, Gandhi said there was "obviously something terribly wrong with our defence."
She dubbed as an "inexcusable lapse" an amount of Rs 24,000 crore allocated for defence modernisation remaining unspent.
Gandhi quoted from the K Subramanyam Committee report that the Kargil intrusion had come as a complete and total surprise to the Indian government, army and intelligence agencies as well as the Jammu and Kashmir government and its agencies and said the demand for discussion on the report had fallen on deaf ears.
"That the lessons of Kargil have not been learnt is evident from the outrage of Hill Kaka near Jammu. Not only this, several hundred terrorists had a clear run over a large area for an astonishing length of time," she said.
Gandhi said because of the CAG, the country now knew how the government permitted corruption in the purchase of coffins meant for Kargil martyrs.