The Hindu : National : Uma Bharti not to resign on Sonia issue

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 18, 2004

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National

Uma Bharti not to resign on Sonia issue

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, MAY 17. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, today ruled out the possibility of her resignation to bolster her opposition to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, becoming the Prime Minister. "My resignation is not an issue here,'' she said, addressing a press conference here today.

Warning of a "nationwide movement'' to oppose the installation of the newly-elected Congress parliamentary party chief, Sonia Gandhi, as the next Prime Minister she said: "It will be such a movement that will eclipse the contributions of the Nehru-Gandhi family, that Ms. Gandhi has misused and taken full advantage of.''

Ms. Bharti, who met the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, here, said she had "nothing personal'' against Ms. Gandhi but was opposed to the "very thinking'' that did not question a person of foreign origin assuming the post of the Prime Minister. She met Mr. Kalam to apprise him of this view "before'' he invited Ms. Gandhi to take oath as the Prime Minister.

"This is my final appeal to the Congress allies, all political parties and even to the media,'' she said. Though she did not quite reveal what step she planned to take if her appeal was ignored, she did say that her resignation [as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh] was not an issue. Ms. Bharti had met the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Sunday on the issue. She has also made her views known to the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Venkaiah Naidu.

Ms. Bharti debunked the argument of Indians holding office in Canada, Fiji or Mauritius saying that those States did not have original inhabitants but settlers, including Indians, whose third or four generation rose to became heads.

"That situation cannot be compared with an old civilisation like India with a population of 100 crores.''

Saying that the people's mandate was not for Ms. Gandhi, she questioned how many people had elected her as Prime Minister — not even Rae Bareli, she said. "She has not led any struggle for this nation. She is not fit to govern. To have a person of foreign origin as the Prime Minister would be a poor legacy for future generations. This is deceitful,'' she said.

Asked if she would be opposed to any of Ms. Gandhi's children, Rahul or Priyanka, for the post, she said: "Anyone born in India is acceptable.''

Ms. Bharti said the BJP would discuss why it did not bring a constitutional amendment against people of foreign origin holding high constitutional posts during its tenure.

On why the makers of the Constitution did not address the issue, she said: "They were so fired with the spirit of the freedom struggle that they would not have imagined that such a situation would ever arise.''

But when reminded that it was the Congress' prerogative to elect its own leader, she retorted, "I also have the right to make an appeal to oppose it.''

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