People are tired with India's leaderless-ness: BJP

Going hammer and tongs at the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday claimed there was a "leadership crisis" in the party and attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In an apparent reference to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that while senior Congress leaders stay in the background, others from the party try to counter Narendra Modi through "tweets and taunts".

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh is known to post tweets critical of Modi, the BJP prime ministerial candidate and the Gujarat chief minister.

"The Congress has a leadership crisis. They are keeping their leaders behind the scene," said Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

He was speaking at a gathering of over 300-350 medicos at his residence, where party leaders, including the BJP's chief ministerial candidate for Delhi Harsh Varshan, appealed to doctors to become "political messengers for the party" for the coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Attacking the prime minister, Jaitley said, "There is a leadership contest at the Centre. People are tired with the leaderless-ness. There is no point discussing how long one was prime minister. The point is what did you did while in power. Now, years won't be counted, but your work will."

Party president Rajnath Singh, who was also present on the occasion, said there was a "crisis of credibility" in the Congress.

Rajnath Singh said that "one family ruled the country for 40 years" and was still not able to sort out the problems in India.

"The country has three diseases -- income disparity, corruption and poverty. Congress is the reason behind all these diseases," alleged Rajnath Singh.

The BJP president also attacked the prime minister, alleging Dr Singh had failed to tackle issues related to the economy, internal security and diplomacy.

Echoing the remarks of the BJP president, Jaitley said, "There was an image that India is a booming country and the fastest growing economy after China. Ten years ago the concept of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) came into existence and it was said that, by 2050, it will replace America and Western Europe”.

"(But) there have been discussions going on for the past two-three years that BRICS should be redefined and 'I' (India) should be dropped from BRICS," Jaitley alleged.

Appealing to the medicos for their support, Jaitley said, "I am not talking about Delhi alone. The elections are getting over in five months. Just spare some time for us for the next five-six months. It's a relay race. If we win all four assemblies, then, from December 8, this will be a lame-duck government and the agenda for the Lok Sabha elections will be fixed".

He expressed hope that BJP's performance this time would be better than in earlier years.

"We won 182 (seats in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls) and 183 seats (in 1999). Even the opposition has accepted that we will cross that figure this time," Jaitley said.