The Hindu : Ayodhya a legal issue, says Chandrababu Naidu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 09, 2003

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National

Ayodhya a legal issue, says Chandrababu Naidu

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 8. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam party chief, N. Chandrababu Naidu, today said his party was of the view that the Ayodhya tangle was a "legal issue" and it was for the courts to decide on it.

While he did not comment on the Vajpayee Government's latest move to approach the Supreme Court to get last year's stay vacated, Mr. Naidu said judicial verdict was the only option since differences persisted and since no political solution had been found.

He told correspondents here that little political advantage could be derived by raising the issue before elections. The Government's performance was what mattered for the people who could not be taken for granted.

He parried questions on whether the Vajpayee Government had deviated from the National Agenda for Governance by approaching the court.

Mr. Naidu said he had a brief interaction with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and he was able to discuss only the issue of liberal drought assistance for his State. He said Mr. Vajpayee had responded positively.

Mr. Naidu, who was here to attend the Chief Ministers' conference on internal security, met the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the Urban Development Minister, Ananth Kumar.

He urged Mr. Kumar to sanction a metro railway system for Hyderabad to cater to the growing demand for urban transportation. The State Government had appointed the Delhi Metro chief, E. Sreedharan, as a consultant who would submit a feasibility report in three months. The project could be financed both by the State Government and external assistance.

Discussing the budget proposals with Mr. Singh, Mr. Naidu suggested that more needed to be done to promote growth in areas such as infrastructure, aviation, IT and labour reforms.

Mr. Naidu said he had always advocated reforms and opening up of the telecom sector. By pursuing it, people were now experiencing the "lowest cost of communication" in the world. He predicted that in the next two years, Andhra Pradesh would boast of technology in this sector even in the rural areas that would match the best in the world.

On the strike in the Singareni collieries, Mr. Naidu said that while his Government had turned around a public sector undertaking that was referred to the BIFR, political parties were creating trouble by instigating workers strike work. All parties should rise above such politics and think in terms of overall growth, he said.

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