Party leaders' 'small mistakes' embarrass Advani

Under fire from the Congress over BS Yeddyurappa's arrest, senior BJP leader LK Advani today admitted that "small mistakes" were embarrassing the party leadership which had cautioned the former Karnataka chief minister on the developments.

Stating that the by-poll results were a reflection of the government's "inability to govern", Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Tuesday asked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to heed the warning of the electorate.

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"It is the people’s warning to the government that they are tired of the prevailing corruption. The results of the by-polls are a reflection of the government's inability to govern,” Advani said at a press conference here.

The BJP leader, who is on the Maharashtra-leg of his all-India yatra against corruption, said the by-poll results of Monday were significant. For the UPA government, “the writing is on the wall”.

The Congress lost the Hisar parliamentary by-election in Haryana that went to Kuldeep Singh Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress, backed by BJP. It was also defeated in the three other assembly by-elections in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

This was Advani's first press conference after cancelling two scheduled meetings in Hoshangabad and Chhindwara, both in Madhya Pradesh, following its leader and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa being arrested on corruption charges.

Later Tuesday, he will enter Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh and is scheduled to reach western Maharashtra and Mumbai in the first week of November.

At a public meeting in Saoner town on Monday, Advani had contended that Manmohan Singh was the "weakest" prime minister he had ever seen.

He had also accused Manmohan Singh of failing to live up to his 2009 promise of bringing back slush funds lying in foreign banks within 100 days of coming to power.

Under fire from the Congress over BS Yeddyurappa's arrest, Advani also admitted that "small mistakes" were embarrassing the party leadership which had cautioned the former Karnataka chief minister on the developments.

"The party had cautioned Yeddi on the developments," Advani told reporters here replying to a volley of questions on the arrest of Yeddyurappa on graft charges.

"Small mistakes by others was embarrassing the party leadership. There may be chances of a slip up so I am telling every one in the party to remain vigilant," he said without directly naming the ex-CM for his alleged involvement in the mining scam.

On black money and steps taken by the BJP-led NDA government in the past to bring it back, Advani said the laws were stringent at that time and banks in Switzerland were not parting with any information.

He said it was only after serious economic crisis that European countries particularly Germany sought the list of black money depositors and subsequently obtained it.

It contained about 2000 names of which 500 belonged to Germany, he said.

Accusing the UPA government on the issue, Advani said the German government that time expressed its willingness to share it with those countries approaching it.

"The Indian Government did approach it and secure the list but that was neither made public nor efforts made to bring back the black money stashed there," Advani said.

(With PTI inputs)