Mumbai: In an attempt to take the wind out of the sails of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s "feel-good factor", senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh today (March 11, 2004) said the Centre's dependence on inflow of speculative money could result in a stock market and banking crisis.

"The BJP-led Government is depending on large inflow of money from speculators, participatory notes and hedged funds. If the interest rates are increased then economy can be in a serious trouble and there will be a crisis for the stock market as well as banking sector," he told reporters.

Emphasising that he was not against the reforms process, Singh, the former Union Finance Minister who initiated the process of liberalisation in early '90s, claimed that if US changes the interest regime and liquidity dries them up, banks will have to call back loans and even the stock market crisis will spill over to the banking sector.

Sharply attacking the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime, the Opposition Leader in the Rajya Sabha said another five years to this Government could spell disaster for the country's economy, society and polity.

Reminding the journalists that it was during his tenure as Finance Minister that capital markets were opened up, Singh said BJP's six-year rule has failed to arrest spiralling unemployment and growth of economy and exports has declined.

Singh on this occasion also released a Congress chargesheet titled "Vajpayee Government: A Saga of Sins, Scams and Shame". The 55-page document sharply ridicules BJP's claim of eradicating "bhay (fear), bhukh (hunger) and bhrashtachar (corruption)."