Time to make country 'Congress-free': Rajnath Singh

Terming the UPA government as a "failure" on all fronts during its nine year rule, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Thursday asked all opposition parties to make the country "Congress-free". "Congress-led UPA has proved a failure on all fronts be it economic issues, internal or external security or diplomatic strategies," Singh, who was flanked by BJP's UP in-charge Amit Shah, said in Lucknow.

To divert the attention of people from its failure, Congress wants that a debate should start on secularism versus communalism, he said. "Due to its appeasement and vote bank politics the party in its long regime failed to establish communal harmony. Mahatma Gandhi knew the character of the party therefore immediately after the independence he talked about disbanding Congress, which was not followed," he said.

Singh claimed that the people of the country were paying the price of it and said, "I call all the opposition parties to make the country Congress-free." He alleged that after UPA came to power, country's economic condition deteriorated and fiscal and current account deficit has increased.

"The downslide rupee has witnessed against dollar has never happened since independence. It cannot be ruled out that those who have stashed their blackmoney will try to withdraw it as earlier as possible," Singh said.

An inquiry should be conducted that how much money was withdrawn from the foreign banks and by whom, the BJP president said. He accused the UPA government of failing to check the terror activities on the internal as well as the external security front.

"The morale of the terrorists is so high that on the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi's visit they fired on Army troop killing eight jawans in Srinagar," he said. Naxalism has emerged as a serious problem and 20 states were affected by it, Singh.

"There should at least be a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem. We don't want to do any politics on it and BJP wants to assure the government that whatever effective steps it takes the party would support the move," he said.