UPA will not last beyond winter session: BJP

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance government will not last beyond the forthcoming winter session of Parliament, but the Congress ridiculed the claim.

Addressing a BJP protest, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said, "The allies of the government are slowly leaving them and it is not going to last after the winter session of Parliament."

Asking the people to vote out the UPA government in the next general elections, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that money does not grow on trees, now the electors will tell him that votes also do not grow on trees.

The protest was organised by the Delhi BJP Mahila Morcha on the issue of price hike of LPG and power tariff.

At the All India Congress Committee briefing, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari ridiculed Swaraj's claim, noting that the Leader of the Opposition is in the "habit of changing her constituencies and she has 18 more months to choose a new one".

Taking a dig at Jaitley for his remarks, Tewari said BJP's statements were "borne out of their frustration of being out of power" since 2004.

"Instead of attacking the Congress, BJP should introspect. As the Gujarat chief minister is being accused by the CAG of 17 scams worth Rs one lakh crore, on which the BJP is silent, Narendra Modi and they are resorting to spit-and-scoot politics," he said.