Chandigarh: Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia today said the clear indictment of the Congress led UPA government by former Tata head Rattan Tata for failing to control the historic slide in the value of the Rupee was not only the voice of India’s business houses but also a reflection on the UPA policies which had led the country into a financial crisis.
“Rattan Tata is known for his plain speak”, the Revenue minister said in a statement here. “If Tata says the Congress led UPA government is pulling in different directions and that his aspirations from Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh have not been realized the country is bound to sit up and notice the development”, the minister said. Bikram Majithia said this was not the first time the top business houses had reacted in disgust at the manner in which the Rupee had tumbled as well as the crash in the stock markets and the resultant inflation. “Earlier leading industrialist Rahul Bajaj had called for bringing an end to the volatility in currency but to no avail”. He said similarly Godrej group Chairman Adi Godrej had recently urged that the government use its foreign exchange reserves to arrest the rupee’s record plunge to avoid sending the economy into a nose dive but the advice fell on deaf ears.
Asserting that the Congress led UPA government seemed to have shut itself from all sane advice, Majithia said the various States too would suffer due to the centre’s inability to restore investor confidence. “If there is a dry up in investment in the country, the State’s too will suffer due to no fault of theirs”, he said. The minister also took on Punjab Congress leaders Partap Singh Bajwa and Manish Tewari who he said were deliberately trying to create mischief by talking about the State’s financial situation at a time when the financial markets were in the grip of mayhem due to the mis- management of the UPA government. “Will Partap Bajwa and Manish Tewari demand imposition of a financial emergency in the country with even a doyen like Rattan Tata talking about a leadership deficit at the centre”, he asked.
Urging the Congress leaders to walk the talk, Majithia said they should be man enough to admit that long bouts of inaction, uncertainty in governance, lack of inter ministerial clearances for key projects; rising prices and corruption were responsible for today’s state of affairs. Advising them not to try to befool the people with their mischievous statements, the minister said they should better tell the people how the rupee which was equivalent to a dollar at the time of the country’s independence had fallen to a low of Rs 68.80 vis a vis a single dollar.
Meanwhile Majithia said it was ironical that while former Tata group head Rattan Tata had virtually expressed no confidence in the UPA leadership, the Tata group under his protégé Cyrus Mistry had expressed confidence in the far sighted policies of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and the vision of Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal. He said for the first time in the history of Tata the entire top management had collected in Chandigarh recently and promised to invest in the State. “This speaks volumes of how the Punjab government is able to attract investors even as the centre is repelling them with its flawed policies”, he added.