The Hindu : Modi must go: Opposition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 03, 2002

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Modi must go: Opposition

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 2. The Opposition parties today seized the opportunity provided by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report on Gujarat, to demand the resignation of Narendra Modi as the Chief Minister. Both the Congress and the Left parties said that after the NHRC report, there was no justification for Mr. Modi to continue in office.

The Congress spokesperson, Jaipal Reddy, said the NHRC report was a strong indictment of the Modi Government and by implication, a serious reflection ``on the relevance and efficacy of the so-called judicial commission of inquiry ordered by the Gujarat Government''. The Left parties, particularly the CPI(M), plans to launch a movement with some secular Opposition parties to press the demand.

Mr. Reddy termed the report as accurate but also ``an essay in understatement''. He said it was judicious to the point of erring on the conservative side, but it had captured the situation prevailing in Gujarat for the past five weeks.

The CPI(M) said the NHRC's findings against the Gujarat Government made it imperative that Mr. Modi be removed from the Chief Ministership without which no credibility could be restored in the State administration.

In a statement, the CPI(M) politburo said the party was consulting other secular Opposition parties so that a united movement could be launched, on Mr. Modi's removal, after Parliament reassembles on April 15 after the recess.

The CPI(M) said the NHRC report confirmed what was widely known about the culpability of the BJP State Government in its ``failure to protect the lives of citizens belonging to the minority community and, worse, for the connivance of the State machinery in the shameful incidents''.

The party urged the Vajpayee Government to ensure that the NHRC recommendations for handing over the investigation into the worse crimes to the CBI and the setting up of special courts to try the culprits were implemented. The CPI(M) urged its State units to collect medicines for the people living in the relief camps to be sent to Gujarat immediately.

The CPI saw the NHRC report as a ``strong indictment and condemnation'' of the Modi Government. The party charged the State Government with ``serious failure of intelligence and action and its failure to protect life and property of the people''.

It said the continuance of the Modi government would tear the social fabric into pieces further and ``pose a grave threat to the future of the Gujarat and the country as a whole.''

``It has been conniving with all horrendous crimes in Gujarat,'' a statement of the CPI national executive said.

Expressing similar views, the CPI-ML (L) welcomed the timely intervention of the NHRC into the matter. It said the Modi Government had ceased to function during the communal riots and it had rather ``degenerated'' into an instrument to ``murder democracy''.

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