India faces serious leadership crisis: Jaitley

Lashing out at the Centre for failure on economic, national security and foreign policy fronts, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley today said the country is facing a serious leadership crisis.

"A strong leadership is the art of forging a consensus. At present, an optical illusion is being created about a de facto leader and de jure leader. When the prime minister needs to be the captain, he is seen as a nightwatchman," Jaitley said while inaugurating friendsofbjp.org website here.

It is time to reject leadership on the strength of one's surname rather than merit, adding a mature democracy could not be ruled by one family alone, he said.

"BJP is the only party of delivering and even critics concede LK Advani's clarity and decisiveness," he said.

"The need of the hour is to go back to the era of structured political parties," he said.

Many other political parties are following the "Congress model of dynasty. Such kind of captive governance should become liberal and merit should replace the surname," he said.

Jaitley also called for the need to consolidate anti-Congress and non-Congress space in support of the BJP.

"The third force comprises men of great principles who know the art of keeping themselves in power. Such parties add to the political instability in the country," he said.

He said absence of decision-making in the UPA government had led to a disarray in the economic sector and the country had become very insecure in the last five years.

Jaitley said the UPA had inherited a booming economy and will end its term leaving behind the country in debt.

"In the last four-and-a-half years, the Left parties blocked reforms. The government thought absence of decision making was the best art of survival. The Left was succeeded by a non-ideological ally whose agenda was to liason for profitable decision making," he said.

"The UPA defended its inaction saying fundamentals were strong and growth was taking place...But the growth was the impetus of liberalisation since the past 14 years and this government wanted to pocket the credit. When the slowdown hit us, we chose to live in denial," Jaitley said.

The BJP leader also accused the UPA of linking India's defence against terrorism to vote bank considerations.

"If terrorism has no religion, then the response to it also has no religion," he said.

Jaitley said the 26/11 Mumbai attacks had reinforced the fact that the Centre had made India into a "soft state".

The government followed a policy of "go slow" on every strong action and adopted a stand that anti-terror steps are anti-minority, he said.

Jaitley said the government had mislead the country that special laws were not required to fight terrorism.