I pity Manmohan Singh, says Advani

HYDERABAD - Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had compromised on corruption by citing coalition government as an excuse, and said he “felt pity for his helplessness”.

“When I heard his television interviews, I was not angry but I felt pity for his helplessness,” Advani said, while addressing a public meeting of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) here Thursday evening.

Terming the NDA’s fight against corruption a turning point in India’s history, the former deputy prime minister appealed to the people to join the fight to take it to its logical conclusion and to ensure that the 21st century belonged to India.

Coming out hard against the Congress, Advani made it clear that the NDA would not call off its fight even if the government agreed to its demand for constituting a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

“We will not stop this fight unless we root out corruption, as by doing this alone we can build a model state,” Advani said, claiming that the NDA-ruled Gujarat and Bihar had become model states by eliminating corruption.

The BJP leader said one scam after the other was being exposed since the Commonwealth Games.

He reiterated the demand to make public the names of all those who had stashed away black money in foreign banks, and welcomed a direction given by the Supreme Court to the government in this regard.

Advani said Home Minister P. Chidambaram told the World Economic Forum at Davos that the construction of highways was the “biggest swindle” as 50 percent of the money meant for these project was siphoned off.

Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav appealed to people to bring the NDA to power at the centre to root out corruption. He also ridiculed Manmohan Singh for saying he was not as guilty as was being made out to be.