Sunday, May 22 2005 19:43 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Emphasising the need for cohesiveness in the coalition Government, UPA (United Progressive Alliance) chairperson Sonia Gandhi today (May 22, 2005) said the alliance's first year in office has demonstrated that political parties can work together in nation-building without losing their respective identities.

Addressing UPA leaders at a function at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official residence to mark the combine's first anniversary, Gandhi said there were "challenges" for which "full participation" of all coalition partners was required.

Gandhi congratulated the Prime Minister for providing "dignified" and "effective" leadership to the Government and for "enhancing" India's prestige abroad.

Saying that she can look back with some satisfaction, Gandhi said, "Our aim is to ensure that the UPA coalition runs smoothly".

She said, "UPA has not come together just to form the Government."

Observing that it has been a "responsive" Government, Gandhi said its "actions speak louder than the words".

"We began a historic endeavour together," Gandhi said adding in the process "we set out to repair India's secular fabric".

Gandhi said a beginning has been made and the UPA was on its way to redeeming pledges made in the CMP (Common Minimum Programme).

Noting that it has not been an "easy year", she referred to the natural calamities, including the Tsunami tragedy, affecting several parts of the country, spiralling oil prices as also the fact that this was the first time that Congress was heading a coalition Government at the Centre.

Gandhi also spoke of UPA's endeavour to "restore" the professional prestige of institutions of governance and institutions of learning that has been "vitiated by the communal virus".

"We are proud that we are once more a society that celebrates its diversity, led by the Government that stands by its commitment to defeating prejudice and discrimination," she said.

"And it was a quest to provide a responsible and responsive Government, a Government that says what it means and means what it says, a Government whose actions would speak louder than its words," she said.

Gandhi also decried the attitude of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)-led Opposition towards the UPA Government. "We have to contend with an Opposition which has yet to accept that the people of our country rejected it convincingly in the last Lok Sabha elections."

Thanking the leaders of coalition partners as well as those supporting the UPA from outside for making it possible for the alliance to achieve as much as it has, she said "one year of the UPA has amply demonstrated that parties can pursue larger national interests without sacrificing their respective political and electoral goals. We have kept our own identities but have remained true to our responsibilities in Government and to the people."

This commitment must be further strengthened and institutionalised, she stressed. "A UPA that is cohesive and consistent in word and deed can certainly provide the caring and liberating governance that is due to our people," she said.

"In doing so, we will ensure that the day-to-day concerns of all sections of our diverse society remain at the centre of our collective endeavour. It would also mean that transparency, accountability and probity are not empty slogans but a living creed," she said.