NEW DELHI, June 20: Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu today said the Congress has been raising the issue of secularism only to ‘divert’ attention from the real issues such as “corruption, scams and low economic growth”.
“Whenever the Congress is faced with trouble, imminent defeat, peoples’ anger, failure on developmental front and engulfed in corruption, they always try to divert attention of the people from the real issues and bring their old raga of secularism versus communalism,” senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu told reporters.
He said the Congress-led UPA government has ‘failed’ on economic front and “policy paralysis” and “lack of leadership” was resulting in low economic growth and decrease in rupee value, which has touched all time low.
The former BJP president said the economic growth has slowed down and there was “fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, trade deficit, current account deficit, governance deficit and, above all, the trust deficit”.
“Is it danger to secularism is reason behind the decrease in rupee value, low economic growth, fiscal deficit? This is because of the Congress’ failures under an economist Prime Minister, economist Finance Minister and economist Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission,” Mr Naidu said.
He claimed that for the first time there was interest payment of more than Rs 3 lakh crore and the debt has crossed foreign exchange reserve.
Mr Naidu said the government was trying to hide its ‘failures’ through “sponsored publicity programmes”.
He slammed the Congress for raising the issue of secularism and communalism.
Indirectly referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who praised Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a “secular leader”, Mr Naidu said the Congress was giving a “certificate of secularism” and the people who were against the ruling party at the Centre were happy after receiving that certificate.
Mr Kumar’s JD(U) left the NDA on Sunday over the issue of promotion of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as chairman of the BJP’s election campaign committee.
(UNI)
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