STRONGLY attacking what he called the BJPs politics of disruption,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said the oppositions strategy to obstruct risked distracting the government from focusing on the countrys problems including the economic slowdown. Singh invoked the fundamentals of parliamentary democracy - debate and discussion - as he castigated the main opposition party for wasting an entire session of Parliament over the CAG report on coal block allocations. He said the government had been ready to discuss the issue in the Public Accounts Committee as well as in both houses of Parliament. He also asserted that the government had no intention of sweeping under the carpet issues raised in the CAG report and said they would not only be discussed in Parliament but corrective action would be taken if required. We do incalculable damage to the reputation of Indias Parliament if we resort to disruption of Parliament to make a political point, Singh said in astatement,entitled Message to the Nation,released after the monsoon session of Parliament ended Friday. If this thought process is allowed to gain momentum,it will be a grave violation of parliamentary politics as we have understood. The prime minister said the country is passing through an exceptionally difficult phase with many internal and external problems and challenges. There are problems of communal tension,ethnic violence and the ever present threat of Naxalism. Terrorism remains a serious threat.these are some of the issues that should have been discussed in Parliament so that our countrymen could have been better informed of these problems and ways of addressing them, he said. Singh said there were major economic challenges too. We must work hard to ensure that the Indian economy returns to high growth. I have no doubt we can do it, he said. We cannot do this if the government is constantly distracted by the actions of those who prefer obstruction over discussion. Singh also said that the he and his government had great respect for the CAG but the institution would be strengthened only if its reports were taken seriously enough to discuss them in the PAC as well as on the floor of Parliament. PAC reports deal with complex issues on which there can be different points of view and all these must be heard fully before rushing to judgment. We do not strengthen the CAG as an institution by using its reports to prevent discussion and cause disruption, Singh said. Calling on all right minded Indians to stand up and unite against the forces of anarchy and disruption to secure the foundations of hard earned democratic and constitutional rights,the prime minister warned that politics of disruption would be a grave violation of democracy and could lead to a deeply divided and disenchanted country. The country should make up its mind if this is the right way to serve a practising and functioning democracy,Singh said,adding that those who follow the path of disruption detract from Indias prestige as the worlds largest parliamentary democracy. They are unwittingly only serving the ends of those who want to weaken the country and discredit its institutions. Addressing a press conference separately,minister of state for planning Ashwini Kumar charged that the BJP was pursuing a brazenly partisan political agenda. The BJPs politics is an invitation to political instability,internal strife,social divides and an anarchist polity that can secure neither our present nor our future he said.
