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Gujarat Cabinet not for dissolution now

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR APRIL 17. The Gujarat Cabinet, headed by the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, today indicated that there would not be immediate dissolution of the Assembly paving the way for fresh election as recommended by the BJP national executive committee. The Cabinet did not even take up for discussion anything in this regard.

The Cabinet discussed the steps to hold the second phase of the secondary and higher secondary examinations scheduled to begin from tomorrow in Ahmedabad and Baroda.It, however, took a serious note of anti-social elements taking ``shelter'' in the relief camps and instigating violence. It ordered a senior secretary level inquiry into such activities and decided to invoke the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA) against those disrupting peace or posing a threat to the peaceful conduct of the examinations.

The Cabinet spokesman, I. K. Jadeja, said the Government was providing all necessary facilities for the riot victims and it would not allow the relief camps to become a shelter to anti-social elements.

The State president of the BJP, Rajendrasinh Rana, had told mediapersons on Monday that the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday would take a decision on Assembly dissolution. But Mr. Jadeja, who is also the Urban Development Minister, said today that the issue was never in the Cabinet's agenda and it was not taken up for discussion today.

Some Ministers, when approached, asked, ``should the Cabinet work on the agenda decided by the media?'' When pointed out that it was the party president who virtually misled the media on the Cabinet agenda, they said, ``then you better ask Mr. Rana.''

The Education Minister, Anandiben Patel, denied that the parents of minority students had threatened to boycott the examinations in view of the shifting of the examination centres outside the sensitive areas.

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