The Hindu : The cut and the thrust

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003

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National

The cut and the thrust

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 19 . There will seldom be a dull moment when the RJD member, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, is in the Lok Sabha. It will be more so when he holds centrestage. Today was no exception when he rose to speak during the debate on the no-confidence motion.

Combative from the outset, the Bihar leader picked up the challenge thrown to the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, on Monday by the former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, when he demanded that she substantiate her claim that several jailed leaders of the anti-Emergency movement had petitioned the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, for their release.

Referring to the demand for evidence, Mr. Singh began to read from a document that he claimed was a letter that the then RSS chief, Balasaheb Deoras, in which he sought to distance his organisation from the anti-Emergency movement of Jayaprakash Narayan, and, therefore, seeking the release of Sangh activists.

BJP members were initially taken aback by this onslaught from the RJD leader, but soon they began to object to his use of the document: they maintained that it was not a letter. While the Speaker, Manohar Joshi, stopped Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad from quoting from the document as it was only a press clipping, he reserved his ruling when the Bihar leader pulled out a letter purportedly written by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during the Emergency.

The Opposition, already agitated over earlier attacks on Ms. Gandhi by the Samata leader, Prabhunath Singh, objected vehemently. This plunged the House into another round of clamour, with members from both the sides pulling out the rule books.

Sharad Pawar of the NCP drew the Speaker's attention to the fact that the whole debate was being televised.

While the controversy over these documents, and constraints of time, forced the RJD leader to wind up his speech, his quiver had more arrows. The first of these was directed against Mr. Vajpayee. Chiding the NDA for questioning the purpose of the motion when Mr. Vajpayee himself had disrupted the proceedings of the Lok Sabha on various occasions in the past, he charged that Mr. Vajpayee had failed in his twin duties as Prime Minister and Leader of the House.

Then, commenting on what he saw as the opportunism that held the NDA together, Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad, said: ``This is an `Aya Ram Gaya Ram' government. Today, Thomas (P.C.) is aya Ram, Omar (Abdullah) is gaya Ram; Ajit Singh is `gaya Ram' and Nagmani `aya Ram'.''

Pointing at the NDA benches, he said: ``As many as 41 Ministers have been removed, some have returned, and others are sitting there with crestfallen faces''. Evidently prepared, he heaped scorn on the Government. He questioned the rationale behind the frequent reallocation of portfolios - eight times in the Coal Ministry and over four times in Civil Aviation - and wondered aloud whether this was done in order to allow everyone a share of the spoils of governance.

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