BJP, Sena feel Govt not tough enough

BJP, Sena feel Govt not tough enough

New Delhi

The UPA Government came under sharp attack in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday from the main Opposition BJP and its ally Shiv Sena on the issue of terrorism. While the BJP said the Government was always diffident and did not give a strong message to Pakistan on the burning issue, Shiv Sena charged the Government with not dealing with the menace due to political considerations.

Initiating the debate on terrorism in the wake of bomb blasts in Mumbai last month, Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi said the Government lacked the will to deal with terrorism and was ‘weak’ and terrorists were not scared of the State machinery.

Home Minister P Chidambaram was present during the debate which will conclude on Thursday with his reply.

Criticising ‘ill-timed’ statements by some leaders after the July blasts, the Sena leader said the Government was not going into the root cause of terrorism and repeated attacks on the commercial capital of the country. He said the Government had failed to take strong steps to meet the challenge for political reasons and urged the home minister to provide sophisticated weapons, communication system and other equipment to the police.

Participating in the debate, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said Mumbai saw at least 16 terrorist attacks since 1993 and listed three reasons for the growing menace. He said terrorism was carried out to make presence felt, indicate that they could engineer such outrage at will and that the state machinery was ineffective and send out a message to the international community that India was unsafe country to invest.

Claiming that wrong policies of the Government had forced the security forces to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind their backs, the BJP leader said the need of the hour was to send a strong message to terrorists that they will be dealt with firmly. He also criticized Chidambaram for claiming that the BJP was targeting him on corruption issues as he was investigating right wing terrorism.