Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani on Monday sounded critical of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s direction that either finance minister Pranab Mukherjee or home minister P. Chidambaram should remain in Delhi to look after the day-to-day affairs of the government in his absence. “As per practice, the Prime
Minister can appoint one or two deputy Prime Ministers to assist him. But there cannot be two Number 2 ministers. Until today, we knew that Mr Pranab Mukherjee was the No. 2 minister in the UPA government. But as media reports suggest, the Dr Singh’s strange decision is aimed at demolishing the powers of No. 2 minister Mr Mukherjee,” Mr Advani said.
The BJP veteran said by nominating Mr Chidambar-am as one of the No. 2 ministers, the PM wanted to “thwart the ongoing probe into the 2G spectrum scam in which the latter is said to be involved.”
Taking a dig at the UPA, he said the Centre suffered problem the problem anarchy and chaos. “Anarchy and chaos have plagued the UPA government. It is in a state of paralysis. It cannot take decisions on its own. In Telengana issue, it sought two months time to take a decision, thus allowing the agitation to continue and young people committing suicide for the cause,” he observed.
Stating that the UPA government was continuously “disregarding” the federal structure of the country, the BJP veteran said the Central government had no right to discriminate a state basing on the “complex” of the government.