New Delhi, March 5
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today spoke in both Houses of Parliament like an astute politician and took pot shots at the BJP on issues as diverse as farmers’ plight, internal security and Indo-US nuclear deal. He also showed signs of his emergence as a strategician when he praised BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee and poked fun at Vajpayee’s successor and perceived rival, L.K. Advani.
While replying to the debate on motion of thanks on the President’s address, the Prime Minister placed on record the contribution by Vajpayee in initiating the peace process with Pakistan. “The most courageous steps to build peace were taken by Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. We have continued the process with President Musharraf.”
Contrast this with what Manmohan Singh said about Advani regarding the latter’s old remark that the UPA government was “a faceless and a directionless government”. The Prime Minister said: “Advaniji also predicted that our government will not complete its full term. This is not the first time that he had made such predictions; he had been proved wrong. To him, I would like to say: ‘Na khanjar uthega, na talwaar chalegi, ye baazu mere ajmayee hue hain’ (The dagger will not be lifted, nor would the sword be used; these arms of mine are long tested).
While talking about the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Prime Minister spoke positively of former national security adviser Brajesh Mishra, a known Vajpayee protégé.
“I was very happy some days ago that Brajesh Mishra came out openly in defence of the nuclear cooperation agreement…Also, we had seen in this country Strobe Talbot, who negotiated on this issue with the NDA government, saying that if the NDA government was prepared to follow even 50 per cent of the deal that would be enough…”
The Lok Sabha erupted in turmoil for some time after this remark as the BJP members stood up and protested noisily.
The Prime Minister told Parliament that his government would seek the broadest possible consensus on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Sources say the UPA-Left panel’s meeting on India-IAEA negotiations is expected in the third week of this month, just before external affairs
minister Pranab Mukherjee’s bilateral visit to the USA. Though no firm date of the visit has been announced, it is understood that he is leaving for Washington on March 23-24 night.
The Prime Minister assured the newly elected leadership in Pakistan that India was for good relations with the neighbour and expressed the hope that the two sides would work on a framework for enduring peace.
“India wants to live in peace with Pakistan. The destinies of our two nations are interlinked. We need to put the past behind us…We need to think about our collective destiny, our collective security, our collective prosperity,” he said.
On the farmers’ issue, Manmohan Singh said his government had to write off loans worth Rs 60,000 crore to farmers because of the “unpaid distress bill” left behind by the BJP-led NDA regime.
“Doubts have been raised about the resources required for this write-off. Let me remind the Leader of the Opposition that what we have done is nothing more than picking up the unpaid distress bill which the NDA government left behind,” he said in Lok Sabha.
Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani and other Opposition MPs had asked the government to explain where would it get the money for the loan waiver. The Prime Minister blamed the NDA government for the agrarian crisis in the country, saying: “This distress is a legacy of the NDA rule, a rule during which policies were anti-farmer, anti-agriculture. Low minimum support prices impoverished our farmers. They needed a fresh flow of credit. The tripling of agriculture credit flow by us did not address the problem of past debt.”
The Prime Minister asserted that: “We will not stop till we have wiped the tears from the eyes of all farmers”. He said the debt relief would remove the “burden of the NDA period from our farmers’ shoulders. We are determined to end agricultural distress.”
The Prime Minister was interrupted repeatedly by BJP MPs while he was on the farmers’ issue. He stressed that his government took the historic initiative to waive farmers’ loans on an unprecedented scale.
“A debt relief scheme of this magnitude has never been conceived or attempted before.” He argued that the loan waiver “will allow a fresh flow of institutional credit to farmers. It will clean up banks’ balance sheets. It will stimulate economic activity in rural areas.”
The Prime Minister poured cold water over pessimists when he said the loan waiver would be completed by June end. “It will not be a long drawn affair,” he said seeking to allay apprehensions by members that complicated procedures may come in the way of relief reaching them. He added that the relief package for the farmers will be “well funded”.
