Secular forces must unite: Laloo

By Our Staff Correspondent

PATNA, DEC. 7. The RJD President, Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, today lambasted the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, for his statement on the Ayodhya dispute and called for unity of secular forces to overthrow the ``communal'' Government at the Centre. He also announced his own agitational programme in this regard.

Addressing a press conference along with the Bihar Chief Minister, Ms. Rabri Devi, Mr. Yadav said the Prime Minister's statement exposed the pressure under which he was working, revealing the primacy he attached to the ``hidden agenda''. Mr. Yadav attacked the Prime Minister for trying to justify the action which the latter himself had described as a national shame soon after the Babri Masjid was demolished.

He said Mr. Vajpayee should not have issued such a statement purportedly aiming to save the three Union Ministers chargesheeted in the case when the matter was sub judice. He also regarded as an insult to the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, and the late Jaiprakash Narayan, the Prime Minister's attempt to draw parallels between the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and independence movement and the `Sampoorna Kranti' movement.

Mr. Yadav alleged that the BJP was raking up the temple issue to save its own Government, least bothered that it would set the country on flames. The BJP-led Government was finding itself cornered due to its failures on various fronts, including price rise and the rising resentment against its policies of opening up the economy to multinationals, Mr. Yadav said.

The RJD president wanted those allies of the BJP which considered themselves secular and propagated a common minimum programme to make their stand clear on the BJP's new aggressiveness.

Mr. Yadav said on December 23 he would launch an agitational movement from Bhitiharwa, the ashram Gandhi had set up in East Champaran district to launch his movement against the British regarding indigo cultivation.

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Section  : National
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