Friday, May 03, 2002
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By Our Special Correspondent
Yet its plan to take the sting out of the discussion stood dashed as the Opposition launched a sharp attack and demanded an enquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the Godhra incident. It alleged that the Sangh Parivar might have been behind the Godhra carnage and that the Gujarat Government had watched passively while members of the minority community were murdered and women raped. More importantly, the Opposition alleged that the Centre had not taken adequate steps to stop the continuing violence and was not doing enough for providing relief to the victims. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's comment on `rajdharma' also came in for criticism with the Opposition implying that Mr. Vajpayee was himself not following what he said. Verbal clashes, a brief adjournment and strident demands for the removal of the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, marked the proceedings and the debate remained inconclusive today. The House adjourned exactly at midnight and the debate is expected to conclude tomorrow. After the Congress leader, Arjun Singh, moved the motion, the Leader of the House and External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, said that the Government shared the anguish and sentiments expressed in the resolution, both in letter and spirit. He invited all parties "to work together" and adopt the resolution unanimously. But if the Government expected bonhomie after this, it was mistaken. Initiating the debate, Mr. Arjun Singh said the Government had failed to maintain communal harmony and warned that unless steps were taken to correct the situation in Gujarat, the unity and integrity of the country would be threatened. The Congress member, Ahmed Patel, who represents Gujarat, spoke on the need to provide a healing touch to the riot victims and restoring the confidence of the people. The Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, defended the Gujarat Government, reeling off statistics to reject the charge that the State police was not registering FIRs or was biased in its approach. He added that the Centre would take a serious view of dereliction of duty. His attempt to counter Mr. Arjun Singh's reference to Nazi history was stumped by the Congress member, K. Natwar Singh, who told him "to get history right". However, the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, Laloo Prasad Yadav's maiden speech shook up the House even as the ruling parties tried their best to curtail his speech. Not one to mince words, he said that he "suspected" the RSS' hand behind the Godhra incident and demanded that Mr. Modi be "arrested under POTA". The Union Minister and SAD leader, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, regretted that while the Congress was agitated over Gujarat, it had not acted against those behind the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. K. Rehman Khan (Congress) said that the violence had been condemned by all except the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. The CPI(M) and the CPI expressed identical views and alleged that the VHP's Ram temple campaign had led to the Godhra carnage. The CPI(M) member, Nilotpal Basu, demanded that the Government spell out the steps it proposed to take to rectify the situation, while the Telugu Desam Party demanded the removal of Mr. Modi.
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