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UPA on its last legs, says Arun Jaitley, predicts early general elections

'I don't think the government, which is almost tripping by the day, can sustain the three and a half years which are left,' the BJP politician said.

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Buoyed by its success in stalling Parliament over the mobile telephony spectrum scandal and the victory of its alliance with the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, the BJP today said the United Progressive Alliance government was unlikely to last its full term and the National Democratic Alliance to prepare for the next general elections.

"We are at a strange crossroads," Arun Jaitley, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said. "Till a few weeks ago, I used to say we have to prepare for the 2014 general elections. Today I am not willing to say with any element of certainty or confidence that the next election will only be in 2014.

"I don't think the government, which is almost tripping by the day, can sustain the three and a half years or four years which are left," he said.

Jaitley, who was addressing a seminar organised by the BJP's legal cell on the 2G spectrum allocation issue, asked the party cadre to be ready to take to the streets for protests and rallies in the next three months.

The senior BJP politician said the prospects of the Left parties were dim in the forthcoming assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala and with this the chances of a third front would diminish further.

"We must bear in mind that against UPA and Congress there is little space for two anti-Congress fronts," Jaitley said. "The substantive space is only for one front... We in BJP and NDA have a substantive responsibility. We have to become the nucleus of the anti-UPA politics and in that situation we have to expand the NDA."

He accused the Left parties and other constituents of the third front of frequently changing their stand vis-a-vis the Congress by supporting or withdrawing support.

"In April there is going to be a substantive change... the Left will get a rude setback," Jaitley claimed, saying that for the first time in 30 years there would be no Left government in any big state in the country.

He referred to the recent victory of the BJP in the Gujarat local bodies elections and in Bihar, where the party retained power with a thumping majority along with the JD(U), and said this was an indicator of the things to come.

The eminent lawyer also attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, holding his "silence" on the 2G scam as one of the reasons for the present state of affairs in the country.

"The principal office in a parliamentary democracy is the prime
minister. The prime minister has gone into complete silence. He speaks on foreign policy and then stops at that. For some reason domestic politics is becoming alien to him," Jaitley remarked.

He accused Singh of not taking any initiative to break the stalemate in Parliament or taking a stand against corruption.

"It today appears he is losing his will to govern and that is the silence he is going into.... This government appears to be cracking up as though the Raj is going to slip out," Jaitley said.

He described Singh as a "prisoner of coalition politics" who is "presiding for the last three years over the cover-up [on the 2G scam]".

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