The Hindu : Cong. afraid of facing voters in Gujarat: Jaitley

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 23, 2002

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Cong. afraid of facing voters in Gujarat: Jaitley

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 22. The demand of the Opposition parties for President's rule in Gujarat is ``wholly unacceptable'' and ``without any basis'', the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, said today even as he charged that the Congress was afraid of facing the electorate.

Article 356 of the Constitution under which President's rule can be imposed was meant to be used only in those cases where the constitutional machinery in a State had broken down, and this was clearly not the case in Gujarat, Mr. Jaitley asserted.

``Schools were functioning, political and religious activity was taking place, panchayat elections have been held, and there was ``normalcy'' in the State. Only 10 per cent of the riot victims remained to be rehabilitated and sent back to their homes, but this could not be the excuse for holding back elections,'' he said.

Only in instances where a State was under President's rule had there been a gap of more than six months between one session of the Assembly and another, irrespective of whether it was a new Assembly or the same Assembly. Mr. Jaitley said the Opposition's insistence that elections could be postponed indefinitely in a State where there was a dissolved Assembly was a ``dangerous argument'' that went against the spirit of democracy and accountability of the Government to the legislature.

He demanded that elections be held expeditiously and in any case in time to enable the new Assembly to meet by October 10. The question of deciding the date for the election was within the purview of the Election Commission ``but its powers are circumscribed by article 174 of the Constitution,'' he emphasised.

If the Congress was demanding imposition of President's rule to ensure free and fair elections in Gujarat, would it be ready to accept President's rule in States where it was ruling — Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan, for example — before elections next year?

On the demand for Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir as articulated by some members of the BJP, Mr. Jaitley said that the ``BJP has so far not demanded Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir...individual party members may have demanded it, but the party had not...the BJP has not taken a stand on this''.

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