The Khurana affair

THE CRISIS THAT was brewing in the ruling BJP involving Mr. Madan Lal Khurana may have blown over after the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, agreed to talk to his estranged party colleague. Mr. Khurana's sense of satisfaction over the outcome of the hour-long meeting he had with Mr. Vajpayee and his decision to desist from insisting on a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the issues he had raised may have saved his party from some serious embarrassment. The threatening noises from within the ruling coalition, demanding that the Government roll back the recent hike in prices of foodgrains and other commodities sold through the Public Distribution System (PDS), have even otherwise put Mr. Vajpayee and his Cabinet colleagues in a spot. And Mr. Khurana could not have raised the banner of revolt at a worse time than now. The truce, if one may describe the outcome of the Vajpayee-Khurana meeting as such, must have helped the BJP leaders heave a sigh of relief. Indeed, Mr. Khurana too could not have had a better moment to pitchfork himself on to the centre stage of events, in his own party and the ruling combine, than the present context. And by raising the issues - that the PDS prices be rolled back, the Sankhya Vahini project be kept in abeyance by the Union Government and objecting to the list of items on which import restrictions were lifted by the Union Commerce Ministry - Mr. Khurana had managed to strike with some effect at his adversaries in the party leadership.

But then, some of the questions raised by Mr. Khurana continue to beg a satisfactory answer notwithstanding the truce within the BJP. As for instance the point made by Mr. Khurana that the Sankhya Vahini project is a threat to national security. Indeed, the Sankhya Vahini project on the face of it is nothing more than a framework to provide an infrastructure, through the telecom network that is already there, for speedy transmission and exchange of data. As it is, the idea behind this proposal approved by the Union Cabinet in January this year is to build up means to speedier transmission and exchange of data than what exist today. And one does not find anything that could imperil national security in this. However, the RSS leadership had registered its protest against this project right at the time it

was conceptualised a couple of years ago. And the sangh leaders were the first to cast a stone at it when Mr. Vajpayee's Cabinet approved the proposal. It could be that Mr. Khurana was simply echoing the same sentiments now with a view to endear himself to those in the RSS; he must have felt this - making friends with the RSS - necessary at least for tactical reasons. Indeed, Mr. Khurana had once earlier (in January 1999) launched a tirade against the swadeshi lobby and the RSS, charging them at that time with scuttling the Government's functioning. Mr. Khurana had resigned from the Union Cabinet then.

Be that as it may, the issues raised, particularly the charges that the Government acted against the national interest while deciding on lifting Quantitative Restrictions on the import of 1,429 items from the U.S. and the ``dangers'' to national security if the Sankhya Vahini project was put through, are far too serious to be ``settled'' within the party fora or among a select group of leaders in the BJP. Mr. Khurana is bound, by virtue of the fact that he is a member of the Lok Sabha, to explain to the nation the basis on which he arrived at such conclusions. There is no way that the BJP can treat these as matters concerning only the party; similarly, Mr. Khurana too cannot be allowed to use these issues to settle scores with adversaries within the party. It is also important, now that the Sankhya Vahini project has become the subject of such intense and passionate debate, that the Union Government explain its current stance.

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