The Prime Minister, Mr Atal BehariVajapyee, has been besieged with issues; most of which he cannot handle. The price rise, for example. The cost of essential commodities has been going up at a rate which has made mincemeat of the Government’s rationale that it has been Nature’s vagaries which has been to blame.

Far from it. Sound economic theories have proved that it has been the government’s misadventure with the liberalisation drive which has been responsible for this pathetic turnaround in the nation’s fortunes. The government’s priorities as far as economic policies are concerned have been, to say the least, warped and the common man continuous to suffer. The Left, spearheaded by the CPI(M), has taken this issue up in right earnest but unfortunately, the Vajpayee Government has not even tried to hold a single all-party conference to discuss this issue. The people cannot be fooled any longer though the Prime Minister has time and again harped on the fact that these elections should not be held as a referendum on the performance of his government. But his party national president, Mr Kusabhau Thakre, has let the cat out of the bag by saying that the allies have been responsible for the mess.

But at least a confirmation of what the nation has been talking about for the last few months has come from the president of the BJP itself; the bottomline is that the party has not delivered.

Another slap on the face of the BJP Government has been the killing of the Samata Party candidate from Delhi, Vaid Singh, only days before the elections are to take place. All available proof points to the role of Sahib Singh Verma, former Chief Minister of Delhi, and even if this does not prove that the BJP is packed, right from the top with people who believe in destroying places of worship and eliminating political opponents as a matter of the policy, then something seems to be extremely and singularly wrong with our polity.

The Prime Minister has quite gravely said that the price rise has been the direct fallout of the seasonal pattern; what he has clearly failed to tell the nation is that the very basis of his understanding of economic policy is based on very shallow grounds. The "Swadeshi" garb of present Indian economic policy merits no mention in history except for the fact that it is driving the nation on a suicidal route. And for that, the country will have to pay dearly. The liberation and Swadeshi policies must be abandoned right now if this country needs to be self-reliant.