Brake on Gujarat Govt.'s agenda

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, MARCH 12. Compelled to withdraw the notification on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP Government in Gujarat is forced to shelve the party's other pro-Hindu agenda for the time being to avoid yet another controversy.

Even though the BJP is enjoying a comfortable majority in the State Assembly on its own, the party has realised that the handicapped Atal Behari Vajpayee Ministry at the Centre is the party's major drawback in pushing through the Hindu agenda.

The success the Congress(I) and other Opposition parties in Delhi tasted in forcing the Gujarat Government to withdraw the January 3 notification, thereby reimposing the ban on the State Government employees participating in the activities of the RSS, is certain to be repeated if the State attempts to take up any other contentious issue such as giving a similar leeway to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or taking up the controversial anti- religious conversion Bill the notice for which was given by a BJP member of the State Assembly earlier.

Party sources here say that some of the partners of the National Democratic Alliance - who refused to bail out Mr. Vajpayee on the RSS notification issue - are likely to adopt similar, non-co- operative postures if the ban on the State Government employees to participate in VHP activities is issued by the State or if the Government supports the private member's Bill on the anti- conversion.

The ``Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill,'' which stands in the name of Mr. Mangaldas Patel, a BJP member from the Mansa constituency in the State Assembly, and was published in the Government Gazette of September 30, last year, was scheduled to come up for discussion in the House on March 9, but was dropped at the last moment on the ground that the Government was yet to receive the opinion of the Advocate-General on the Constitutional validity of the measure as advised by the Governor, Mr. Sunder Singh Bhandari.

Sources in the Assembly Secretariat said the Government had enough time to seek the Governor's consent and the opinion of the Advocate-General in the last six months if it was serious about the move.

Besides, the Advocate-General's opinion would not be necessary in merely discussing a private member's Bill which was unlikely to be accepted by the Government in toto and converted into an official Bill. In the last 40 years since the creation of the State, not a single private member's Bill had ever become law and only in very few cases has the Government accepted the sentiments expressed in such a Bill and agreed to bring forward an official Bill on similar lines.

There will be only one more chance for the private Bill being brought back in the House before the current budget session ends on March 30 and goes for a six-month recess. But sources indicate that it is unlikely to take up the Bill in the current session as the heat generated over the RSS notification is yet to subside.

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