Bid for consensus on POTO suffers setback

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 17. The Centre was rebuffed today in its efforts to secure an unambiguous consensus on the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) as the Congress Chief Ministers made it clear that it was unacceptable to them in its proposed form.

The Chief Ministers' conference on Internal Security here failed to yield the kind of endorsement the Government was hoping for. In fact, the day was saved only by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, who promised to call an all- party meeting.

Later, sufficiently worried over the Congress Chief Ministers' opposition to the ordinance, Mr. Vajpayee invited the party president and Leader of the Opposition, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, for a face-to-face discussion at his residence. He was assisted by Mr. Arun Jaitley, Union Law Minister, while Ms. Gandhi was helped by Dr. Manmohan Singh. The Government side was reportedly feeling much better after the meeting.

However, the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, later told reporters that he was satisfied that a national consensus was in the making in favour of a special legal framework against terrorism. Earlier, he had forcefully argued in favour of the proposed law and asserted that the country was determined to banish terrorism.

He was, he said, ``pleasantly surprised'' to find that there were not too many differences on POTO but the Chief Ministers did express their reservations on at least two counts. They were sore over the Centre's failure to have discussions before promulgating POTO and appeared cut up with the Government for not discussing it with the Opposition at any stage.

Pointing out that discussions had been held on various fora, Mr. Advani said even now the Government was contemplating discussions with political parties before the debate on POTO came up in Parliament.

Briefing presspersons on the deliberations of the Chief Ministers' conference, he said the outstanding feature was the ``uniformly constructive approach.''

However, the Centre's proposal to set up a federal crime fighting agency had been rejected by the Chief Ministers. ``There was no agreement on federal crime fighting agency earlier and there was no agreement today also,'' Mr. Advani said.

``Everybody agreed that there is a need to rise above party lines and we must meet challenges of the situation as one strong and united nation. Most of the Chief Ministers emphasised the threat of terrorism that the country is facing but the most impassioned plea was made by the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah.''

The political tone at the conference was set at the very beginning by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Digvijay Singh, who insisted on making an intervention from the floor, even before Mr. Vajpayee could make his opening remarks. He contended that the Centre had not kept its promise of consultation with the Chief Ministers - as decided at the Chief Ministers' conference last year - and wanted to know what were the ``extraneous circumstances'' which prompted the promulgation of an ordinance just a few weeks before a Parliament session.

Objecting to the Home Ministry's presentation that a divisive society becomes the hunting ground for terrorists, Mr. Singh argued that one form of religious extremism would breed another. In this context, he referred to Mr. Advani's recent claim that his ``rath yatra'' had reinforced cultural nationalism and yielded the BJP rich electoral dividends.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, objected to Sections 3 (viii) and 14 (i) of POTO and wanted them to be modified. Stressing that freedom of the Press was important, he said it was also important to have good, strict laws in place with adequate safeguards.

Voicing his opposition to POTO, the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, described it as an ``encroachment'' of the State's rights.

He told presspersons that his Government would soon introduce a law to specifically deal with four aspects - insurgency-related terrorism, attempts to disturb communal harmony, hijacking and kidnapping.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr. O. Panneerselvam, supported POTO but favoured a consensus through persuasion. He felt the ordinance contained enough safeguards.

The Kerala Chief Minister, Mr. A.K. Antony, described POTO as ``anti-democratic and suffering from serious legal infirmities.''

Combating terrorism was the need of the hour, he said, but wanted a large consultative process involving all political parties to put in place an appropriate legislation.

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