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3 Cong. MPs defy party line

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 8. The Congress suffered considerable loss of face in the Lok Sabha today when three of its members defied the ongoing boycott of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, to participate in the calling attention motion of the Congressman, Jagmeet Singh Brar, on the frequent MiG crashes.

Taking a stern view of "the serious breach of party discipline", the Congress high command removed Mr. Brar as its whip. Though Laxman Singh stayed on for the entire discussion and K. P. Singh Deo left after Mr. Fernandes read out his initial statement, the axe for now has fallen only on Mr. Brar. That it had created an embarrassing situation for the Congress was admitted by the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, Shivraj Patil, outside the House. The issue had apparently been discussed this morning at the Political Affairs Committee meeting. Since Mr. Brar was not present, Mr. Patil asked him not to raise it in view of the boycott.

Though Mr. Brar is said to have assured Mr. Patil that he would just go through the motion, he put a couple of questions to Mr. Fernandes before walking out at the end of the 45-minute-long discussion expressing dissatisfaction with the reply. As for Mr. Singh, he stayed on as other Congress MPs returned for zero hour.

If the behaviour of the three members stumped the Congress leadership, it was no less a surprise for the NDA leaders who watched in glee Avtar Singh Bhadana and Ranee Nara make them leave the House in vain. In fact, some of the NDA members took digs at them and it was left to the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, to come to their defence.

Earlier, as the Speaker allowed Mr. Brar to initiate the discussion, the RJD leader, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, led the boycott with the Left and Congress members following him out of the House.

The BJP Chief Whip, V. K. Malhotra, objected to the continued boycott of Mr. Fernandes over the Tehelka findings and urged the Speaker to intervene. Once out of the House, Mr. Brar had considerable explaining to do with the two AICC general secretaries, Ahmed Patel and Ambika Soni, taking him to task. Later, he tendered a written apology to the party president, Sonia Gandhi, stating that he had acted inadvertently and without any intent to flout party discipline.

As for Mr. Singh — the younger brother of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh — he is said to have explained his behaviour immediately after coming out of the Lok Sabha. Singh Deo's explanation was that he waited only to hear Mr. Fernandes' statement — a written copy of which was available — as the latter had posed a similar question to him when he was the Defence Minister earlier.

Evidently pleased by the turn of events, Mr. Fernandes later said that he was "happy that some Congress members had the courage to listen to me; I hope others will follow".

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