Friends, I have travelled Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Rajasthan in the last 11-12 days, but I am really upset that the political parties are busy in discussing and debating useless issues which have no relevance with the grievances of the common man in the country.   After 68 years of our independence, I have not seen any change in the poverty level in so far as the rural areas are concerned.  The population living in the urban cities has changed their standard of living but I do not think that they are happy as they were comfortable in earlier days.  The political parties instead of debating the issues of corruption, price rise, unemployment, dwindling economy, farmers� plight, problems of adivasis, corruption and other issues of importance for general public, they are busy in wasting time and energy on maligning, abusing and throwing mud on each other.  The situation in the country is deplorable, but political parties have detracted and deviated from their path and responsibilities that they are meant to perform.

            The country is passing through very depressed period whether it is a question of unity and integrity of the nation or enforcing laws enacted for the welfare of poor and down trodden people of the nation is concerned.  The economy of the country is shockingly in bad shape as the growth is coming down, Rupee is weakening, inflation is on the higher side, agriculture growth is not encouraging, industrial growth has slowed down, current account deficit is not under control so on and so forth. I foresee that again 1991 approaching soon when the country was forced to fly 67 tons of
gold to Europe as collateral for emergency loan from the IMF.  As I mentioned above, I have been travelling all over the country but I must say here that poor people are not being benefitted from the schemes meant for them.  Shri Rajiv Gandhi was the only person who had courage to rightly mention that only 15% of the funds of the Government Schemes reach the poor man and the rest is looted by others.  The schemes made by the Central Government are not being implemented in the interest of poor people of the country.

I have mentioned at many forums in and outside Parliament about the loot of minerals and metals which is the national wealth.  Since 1991, the persons who were just nothing have become billionaire in our country due to loot of natural resources and land of the Government. Now there are only few business houses which are controlling the economy of the country due to favourable policies made for them by the Government.  I can challenge the Government to show me any poor person whose standard of living has been changed in the last 15 years excepting certain big business houses which have become richer and richer.  The countries like China have benefitted from disposal of its natural resources in a justified manner and first they made themselves robust in their own country and then they opted for economic liberalization.  And we are the country that instead of first utilizing our strengths we have surrendered to multi-nationals and the day is not far that they would exploit our weaknesses to bring back the regime of East India Company in our country.

            Having said the above, I am sad and worried that the major political party like Bhartiya Janata Party has lost its direction and indulged in debating useless issues instead of discussing the issues of public importance.  I feel that this trend has intensified in the last 3-4 months after BJP announced their Prime Ministerial candidate.  After this announcement, the useless and filthy debates and
discussions have started at different forums and media in the wake of elections in the five States.  The personal blame game has started between the political parties which is very bad and unhealthy practice and precedent for the politics in the country.  With meaningless debates and discussions, we are devaluing the politics and democracy in our country.  We are not setting right and fruitful examples for our young and coming generation.  We should stop all this and should discuss the issues of public importance.  The political parties should determine to debate only on such issues whether in media or any other forum concerning poor and under privileged people which will be the genuine service of the nation.