The Hindu : BJP refutes Samata charge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 07, 2002

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National

BJP refutes Samata charge

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 6. The Bharatiya Janata Party today stoutly defended the disinvestment process despite the embarrassment caused by its strongest partner in the National Democratic Alliance, the Samata Party, questioning the bonafides of the Mumbai Centaur Hotel sale and the IPCL disinvestment.

The party spokesperson and former Disinvestment Minister, Arun Jaitley, said that it was the "market'' which determined the sale price at any given time, and the price going up or down a few months or years later could not and should not be used to question the integrity of the sale. He was responding to the Samata Party's criticism that the Centaur Hotel was sold at a profit of Rs. 32 crores "within six months'' by Batra Hospitality which had bought the hotel and then sold it to Sahara.

Mr. Jaitley pointed out that in the case of VSNL, the share prices had dropped after the sale to the Tatas and that did not mean the Government had "duped'' the Tatas.

The party also refuted the Samata's charge that guidelines had been flouted while making a strategic sale of IPCL to Reliance.

What is being privately conceded by party leaders is that criticism of disinvestment and questioning the integrity of the process by those within the Government and "friends" outside had, in fact, helped turn a success story into a failure in public perception.

Mr. Jaitley repeated his criticism of the Jammu and Kashmir Government for saying that it could review the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He made it plain that the State Government had no power to review legislation passed by Parliament on a subject on which it had no jurisdiction.

Under the Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah Accord, Parliament continued to have power "to make laws relating to the prevention of activities directed towards disclaiming, questioning or disrupting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India or bringing about cession of a part of the territory of India or secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union...'' There was no doubt at all, no grey area, about this position, Mr. Jaitley said.

In fact, the Congress, which was part of the coalition Government in the State, should respond to the suggestion of the Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. According to Mr. Jaitley, no State Government could decide not to implement a law passed by Parliament. "Can a State decide not to implement the Indian Penal Code or the tax laws passed through the Finance Bill? POTA was no exception,'' he said, dismissing the Congress' known stand that it would not implement POTA. All it could do is not to apply the provisions to a specific case and instead frame charges under a different provision.

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