National

PM `satisfied', Sinha clarifies

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 14. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today expressed satisfaction that the Government had avoided a censure motion on Gujarat from being adopted, while the Union Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, used the occasion of the parliamentary party meeting of the BJP to clarify that he had done no wrong by purchasing election material from Flex Industries, currently being investigated by the CBI and charged with showing "favours" to the former Cabinet Secretary, Prabhat Kumar.

Mr. Sinha emphasised that while he had indeed bought some election material from Flex Industries, his dealings had been above board. He said he had paid for the material, it had all been accounted for, the accounts were submitted to the Election Commission, and his statement in Parliament tomorrow would make everything clear. In short, there was nothing for the party to worry about as far as his dealings or conduct were concerned. Mr. Sinha's plea was that when he purchased material from Flex it was not under investigation.

Mr. Vajpayee said that the Government had demonstrated its stability by comfortably defeating the Opposition motion on Gujarat in the Lok Sabha, and in the Rajya Sabha it had avoided censure by agreeing to support the resolution. In the process, it also amply demonstrated that it had the numbers and was stable, he added.

The Prime Minister again referred to the Government desire to have a consensus resolution on Gujarat in the Lok Sabha also, but that did not materialise due to last-minute hitches. He advised his party MPs to fan out in their constituencies at the end of the Parliament session and spread the word about the Government's good work with confidence. Later, party sources said that although there would be no meeting of the NDA parliamentary party, the Prime Minister was hosting a dinner for all NDA MPs at his residence on Thursday.

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