NEW DELHI, 24 July — The opposition launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government in Parliament yesterday over its refusal to dismiss Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi ahead of coming polls.
Opposition leaders demanded that president’s rule be immediately imposed on the state and criticized Vajpayee’s Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for demanding early elections to the Gujarat Assembly.
Most of them dismissed Modi’s claim that the situation in the western state had returned to normal after the three-month sectarian violence.
The opposition attacks came during a debate on the Gujarat situation in Parliament’s both houses. The government acceded to the demand for a discussion after the opposition refused to let the two houses function Monday.
Three allies in Vajpayee’s multiparty ruling alliance, including its biggest supporter Telugu Desam Party (TDP) from Andhra Pradesh, embarrassed the government by virtually siding with the opposition.
But BJP spokesman and General Secretary Arun Jaitley rejected their demand saying there was no need to place Gujarat under central rule.
“President’s rule can be imposed only if there is a breakdown of the law and order machinery and the government cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the constitution,” Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha.
“But conditions in Gujarat have become normal and there is no case for imposing president’s rule there.”
Jaitley said the fact that 98 percent of students appeared for school examinations a few weeks ago proved that the situation was returning to normal.
Last week’s “Rath Yatra” and other political rallies in Ahmedabad that passed off without incident too underlined the same fact, he added.
Modi resigned as chief minister on Friday urging for the state assembly elections earlier than February when they are due. Governor S.S. Bhandari dissolved the assembly on Modi’s recommendations.
But the opposition and unhappy Vajpayee allies refused to accept Jaitley’s views saying the situation in Gujarat, where the three-month communal violence starting February killed over 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, was tense.
Said Congress MP Kamal Nath in the Lok Sabha: “How can they think everything is normal in Gujarat? Do they have a figure of how many voters are displaced?”
He was referring to the tens of thousands of Muslim survivors of the sectarian fury who are still holed out at makeshift relief camps.
Nath, who just returned from a tour of the communally charged state, questioned the government’s claim that early polls would return Gujarat to normalcy.
“People are traumatized. There are no identity cards, no ration cards. People don’t have their belongings. Is it prudent to hold elections now?”
Asked Communist MP Somnath Chatterjee: “Can you honestly say there is no feeling of insecurity among the people?”
His colleague Basudev Acharya went a step further. “The entire state administration participated in looting, murder and rape. How can we think of free and fair elections under Modi.”
Vajpayee ally TDP’s C. Ramachandraiah in the Rajya Sabha and K. Yerran Naidu in the Lok Sabha criticized the BJP’s demand for early Gujarat elections. Said Yerran Naidu: “Modi should be removed, law and order should be restored and assembly elections should not be held until complete normalcy is restored.
“Elections should not be an overriding priority at this stage. At this juncture, relief and rehabilitation to those affected is the foremost thing. The need of the hour is a healing touch for the people of the state.”
Key Vajpayee ally, Trinamool Congress President Mamata Banerjee asked the BJP not to make Gujarat a prestige issue and remove Modi.
Another ruling coalition partner, the National Conference from Jammu and Kashmir, too chided Vajpayee’s party for its rigid stance on Gujarat.
National Conference President and Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah told the Lok Sabha “when the country is faced with the biggest challenge of cross-border terrorism, incidents like Gujarat’s violence make us defensive.”
