From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Mar 30: BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swamy demanded prosecution of former Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UDIA) Nandan Nilekani under the Prevention of the Corruption Act for squandering the country’s resources for implementing the Aadhaar scheme.
Addressing presspersons here on Sunday, the BJP leader said a study conducted by Indian The Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, judged the Aadhaar scheme as "the most useless."
The Standing Committee of the Parliament on Finance had also echoed the same view, he said and contended that the Congress candidate from the Bangalore South constituency cannot escape responsibility for ''squandering" tax-payer’s funds.
''In my opinion Nilekani should be prosecuted under section 13 (1) (G)/3 of the Prevention of the Corruption Act for squandering the country’s natural resources for US-based companies," Dr Swamy said.
The Congress has pitted the Infosys co-founder Nilekani against five-time and BJP’s National General Secretary Ananth Kumar from the Bangalore South constituency.
Modi Govt will Scrap UPA’s Aadhaar
Noting the misuse of the country’s money for implementing the Aadhaar scheme by Nilekani, Swamy said already Rs 4,000 crore had been spent during the last five years.
The Congress-led UPA government had set aside budgetary allocation of Rs 12,568 crore for implementing the project, he said.
''If the NDA comes to power, the present form of Aadhaar will be scrapped," he declared.
Dr Swamy along with former Finance Minister Yeshwant Sinha and Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitely are hot contenders for the Finance Minister’s post if the BJP-led NDA comes to power in the current Lok Sabha elections.
The country needed a decisive policy-making government and only the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi would provide the stable and decisive government, he said.
The BJP leader accused Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram of having left the country’s economy in a "complete mess" and said the next government led by Narendra Modi would have to undertake major reforms to undo the damage caused by the UPA government.
Chidambaram Responsible for the Mess
''We are in a very, very delicate situation and the new government will have to undertake major economic reforms to rectify what damage the UPA has done to Indian economy," Dr Swamy argued.
Hitting out at UPA government for economic growth rate of 4.8 per cent when compared to NDA’s 8.4 per cent, he said fiscal deficit was at an all time high and could lead to a major crisis.
''The situation has now reached the stage that for every Rupee that they borrow from public sector bank, 96 paisa they have to repay as interest on principal for the previous loan," he said.
He said: ''We are in a complete mess and the most alarming part of today’s situation is that the budget has been put in such a difficult and bad state by Chidambaram."
Stating that the next government would be led by Modi, Dr Swamy said, it is going to face a situation of bankruptcy of Indian economy, which it will have to rectify within six months.
BJP’s manifesto will speak about some of the economic reforms planned by the party, he mentioned.
Challenging UPA’s claim that large part of the economic crisis was due to external crisis, he said "We were affected by the instrument created by Chidambaram that was called participatory note. The participatory note is a method of laundering money that goes out of India to bring it back and invest it in our stock market."
''The economic crisis is entirely due to UPA in creating an instrument, derivative called participatory note. It is the most dangerous money laundering weapon created in any country. If we abolish participatory note, all this crisis will disappear," he said and held Chidambaram responsible for the entire mess.