Corruption, the poor state of the economy, ditto high prices and higher inflation, policy paralysis and security of women—these are topics that the UPA has faced flak on in the ongoing campaign for General elections 2014.
The issue that may impact all of us alike, of security from terror, joined the list with the BJP's chargesheet against the UPA on Friday that listed out numbers of civilians dying in terror attacks in the UPA rule.
Interestingly, this comes at the end of UPA's 10-year-old rule when the incumbent government has perhaps its best grip over the security situation - be it in Jammu & Kashmir, naxal-affected states or terror in the hinterland by Indian Mujahedeen or Lashkar-e-Toiba.
While declining militancy in J&K and Naxals did feature in UPA's report card last year, it is all together missing from its election campaign this time.
On Friday, BJP attacked the government on the security front in its 'charge-sheet' saying over 6000 civilians were killed by Naxals since 2006 and another 1000 persons had lost their lives in terror attacks elsewhere.
A careful reading of the official figures (see graphic) however shows that the situation has drastically improved but UPA has failed to hardsell it.
In 2009
But the story was different five years ago. In the Lok Sabha election that year, the UPA government was on the defensive where security was concerned. The Mumbai 26/11 attack was fresh in people's minds as were the 419 lives lost in ten bomb blasts in 2008 in Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.
The BJP tried to cash in on the pervasive insecurity and promised that their prime ministerial candidate LK Advani would deal with terror with an "iron hand" and make India a safer placeif it came to power.
On 17 Feb 2009, Advani thundered in Lok Sabha why the UPA had "slept" for almost a year when it had prior information of an impending attack on Mumbai.
A month later at a political rally, Narendra Modi also slammed the "weak response" of India to the attack from Pakistani soil. "Mumbai was attacked by Pakistan. What did India do?" Modi asked.
In its manifesto too, terror was a big issue. A strong anti-terror law was promised plus a crack down on terrorists "both inside and outside the country" and a major overhaul of the working of Intelligence Bureau and the Research & Analysis Wing.
But the UPA came back with a bigger mandate in 2009 - in fact the Congress-NCP combine won all six seats in Mumbai and the Congress won all seven seats in Delhi, the two metros ravaged by terror attacks just a few months earlier.
Congress also swept the Delhi assembly elections which were held just a week after the 26/11 attacks. Could that be why the UPA has decided that terrorism is not an issue for the electorate?
Tables have turned
This time on security, the UPA has far more in its favour. The top leadership of Indian Mujahedeen (IM) is behind bars, courtesy a remarkable counter-terror operation launched by the country's intelligence and security agencies, in the last six months.
This home-bred jehadi outfit born after the 2002 Gujarat riots has attacked India since 2006 with the frequency of a major blast every six months which in turn led to the rise of a counter group of right-wing extremists who executed half-adozen deadly blasts between 2006 and 2008 to "avenge" the strikes at Varanasi in 2006, by the former.
The last major terror attack was in Hyderabad over a year ago and all four perpetrators behind it - Yasin Bhatkal, Asadullah Akhtar, Tehseen Akhtar and Waqas - are in custody.
The only crowing done by the UPA has been a comment to ET by home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde that these arrests are "the best answer" to BJP's criticism and his junior minister RPN Singh's tweet that UPA meant action and "not just rhetoric". The government has hardly tried to cash in on the 'success'.
Even more perplexing has been UPA's reluctance to take some credit for the dipping violence levels in Jammu & Kashmir and the Naxal-affected states --- Home ministry figures show that 2013 has been the best year for security agencies in the entire tenure of UPA since 2004 in both these major theatres of terror.
The J&K story took a huge turn for the better from 2005 with the Congress and National Conference coming together to run the state government in conjunction with the UPA at the centre.
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