Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh on Sunday charged the United Progressive Alliance government with being in complicity with 'terrorist elements' for electoral gains.
Singh, a Rajya Sabha member, alleged at a press conference in Bangalore that in the last elections in Assam, the UPA had an 'electoral understanding' with United Liberation Front of Asom, while in Andhra Pradesh, it had encouraged Maoists, who had publicly made a statement that they had made an attempt on the life of former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
On the recent Mumbai blasts, Singh said the government's assertions of fighting terrorism are 'empty' and termed its statements as a 'ritual.' "These assertions and statements do not have the strength or supporting policies or conviction of action to deal with the situation," he said.
He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that the government would use all weapons to fight terrorism after the Mumbai blasts, was a 'borrowed phrase' from the United States.
Asked if it was 'intelligence failure' that was responsible for Mumbai blasts, Singh said it was the 'intelligence of the government that has failed.' Charging the Centre with 'accepting' terrorism and terrorist infrastructure within the country, Jaswant Singh said New Delhi's demand to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in neighbourhood lacks credibility because it 'encourages' terrorism at home.
He said he is still to understand why Prevention of Terrorism Act, a law against terrorists and anti-national elements, was rescinded. "Law and order situation in the country is the worst in the last one decade. In the last six weeks, there has been terrorist activity, bomb blasts or killings every day in Jammu and Kashmir. The situation had become so cynical that human deaths have been reduced to figures (numbers)," Singh lamented.