Manmohan Singh weakest PM: Advani

Nagpur: Riding on the Bharatiya Janata Party's success in the Maharashtra by-election on Monday, party leader L.K. Advani entered Maharashtra on a triumphant note near Kelvad on the Madhya Pradesh border, speaking less on corruption and more on retrieving black money abroad.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Monday once again trained his guns on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, terming him the "weakest" prime minister he had ever seen.

Entering the Maharashtra leg of his nationwide yatra against corruption, Advani said that some former prime ministers like Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral had performed better with the support of only a handful of members of parliament.

"These former PMs provided good governance, but Manmohan Singh will not do anything till he gets the signal from 10 Janpath," Advani contended, at a public meeting at Saoner soon after his arrival.

He pointed out that when the United Progressive Alliance was voted back to power in 2009, Manmohan Singh had promised to initiate measures to bring back slush funds stashed away in foreign bank accounts within 100 days.

"However, not it is over two years but the UPA has failed to live up to its promises." Advani added that if the black money is brought back to the country, all the six lakh villages in India can be rid of problems like drinking water, electricity and other infrastructure.

Earlier, Advani's yatra was welcomed at Kelwat town on the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border by BJP president Nitin Gadkari, deputy leader of BJP in Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde, BJP general secretary Venkaiah Naidu, state party chief Sudhir Mungantiwar, Ananth Kumar, Ravi Shankar Prasad and other senior leaders, while Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan saw him off at the border.

The party has won the Khadakwasla Assembly by-poll in Pune district defeating the Nationalist Congress Party.

BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde welcomed Mr. Advani, who is on a Jan Chetna Yatra, and the huge convoy of vehicles. Speaking at a rally at Saoner, Mr. Advani said that while several people tried to dissuade him from the yatra, for him it was something akin to a “roller coaster” ride. The response to his 1,800-km journey so far had been overwhelming and in Madhya Pradesh it was miraculous, he said.

“If there is one issue that has caught the pulse of the people it is the return of black money from foreign banks,” he said, promising the large gathering that once this money was brought back, it could give at least 6 lakh Indian villages much by way of basic necessities.

“It [the money] will build a new India,” he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised that he would work towards getting back black money within 100 days of taking over for the second term in 2009. “It is now 700 days and nothing has happened,” Mr. Advani pointed out.

Hitting out at Dr. Singh, the BJP leader said he had seen all the Prime Ministers in the country and even those like Deve Gowda, Chandra Shekhar or I.K. Gujral, who did not have many MPs supporting them, were never “weak.”

“I feel pity for the Prime Minister now and the government is in a bad situation. I used to respect him earlier. In 2009, when I called Dr. Singh a weak PM, people criticised me saying he is a good man,” Mr. Advani said. “Weakness is not a bad thing but if the Prime Minister says he cannot do anything without clearance from 10 Janpath, what kind of a PM is he?”

Mr. Advani said he had seen all the governments in power and he had no hesitation in stating that A.B. Vajpayee's was a model government and a model coalition. Now the Prime Minister wanted a critical relook at the Right to Information Act after it made public the “civil wars” in the Union Cabinet.

The BJP leader will be in Vidarbha on Tuesday before heading off to Adilabad and back again in Maharashtra for his second leg of the yatra in the western region.