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Thursday 27 September 2012

Will try to bring all parties together against FDI: Nitin Gadkari

Surajkund, Haryana: The BJP kept up its attack on the issue of foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail as well as on the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi over scams charges.

Party chief Nitin Gadkari said today that the BJP will focus on forcing the government to withdraw the recent decision to allow foreign mega-stores to come into the retail stores in India.

Mr Gadkari also said that the BJP will try and bring all parties together on this issue. At the same time, he also said that the BJP was not against reforms.

Attacking the Prime Minister, Mr Gadkari asked, "Why is the PM always in silent mode?" He directly blamed the PM and Mrs Gandhi for the recent spate of corruption scam, accusing them of doing nothing to stop these. He also said that the UPA will collapse under the burden of corruption charges. "This government has achieved new milestones in corruption and broken all records in the past 65 years," Mr Gadkari said, claiming that the UPA will lose the next election because of the coal blocks allocation scam, comparing it to Rajiv Gandhi losing after the Bofors scam. "The country needs leadership and vision. You can donate an eye but not vision," Mr Gadkari said.

He was speaking at the party's national convention in Surajkund on the outskirts of Delhi, where the party is expected to formulate its strategy on the current political and economic situation in the country.

Ahead of the meeting, party general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad told NDTV that the party will finalise its campaign against the government's decision to allow foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail. "As far as FDI is concerned, we are proud of our record of reforms. But every policy change is not reform. And if a norm of reform, dictated from the West and picked up by the pink paper, as the only panacea for India's ills, then sorry, it is not acceptable to us," said Mr Prasad. He had also hinted that if the BJP came back to power, it will cancel the UPA's FDI policy.

Yesterday, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi intervened in a debate on foreign direct investment in retail during the meeting to suggest that the party take the issue to the village level and offered a systematic plan to negate the Congress' "reforms are back" campaign. He suggested that the party hold more than 5000 public meetings across the country to highlight the BJP's objections, 10 in each Lok Sabha constituency. The Gujarat Chief Minister also suggested the BJP emphasise to traders and farmers that the Centre's decision to allow big foreign chains like Walmart to set up shop would affect them adversely.

Party spokesman Prakash Javadekar too had said that the BJP will counter the government's decision to allow 51 per cent foreign equity in multi-brand retail by pointing out that 100 per cent FDI in back-end operations in the food processing industries has been allowed for a decade, but has yielded very low investment. The argument will be part of an economic resolution that the BJP's national council will finalise and pass. 

The BJP leaders are meeting over three days in the picnic town of Surajkund to give shape to the party's strategy ahead of elections in states like Karnataka, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, where it is in power. 

While Mr Gadkari and  other senior leaders like LK Advani are present at the national executive meeting in Surajkund on the outskirts of the capital, Karnataka heavyweight BS Yeddyurappa has skipped the session, opting to enrol for a three-day course with the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore, headed by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. His party no doubt wishes fervently that he finds the inner peace that the Foundation promises. With elections in Karnataka just months away, Mr Yeddyurappa's absence from this week's three-day brainstorming session does not bode well for the BJP.

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