Date:10/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/10/stories/2008101060251300.htm

National

Cabinet split on President’s Rule

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet is divided on the demand for imposing President’s Rule in Orissa and banning the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which have been accused of inciting and indulging in violence against Christians in that State in Karnataka.

As no decision could be reached on either of the issues at Wednesday’s hour-long meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to send a ministerial team to Orissa to assess the situation.

The demand for imposing Central rule was said to have been made by Ram Vilas Paswan (Lok Jan Shakti Party) and Lalu Prasad (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and supported by Congress Ministers, including Arjun Singh, A.R. Antulay and Jaipal Reddy. However, T.R. Baalu of the DMK, Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK and Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party were believed to have opposed it.

While noting that there was no consensus on invoking Article 356, the Prime Minister is learnt to have stressed that something should be done to deal with the Bajrang Dal and the VHP if they continued to indulge in violence.

Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj said a ban on the Bajrang Dal should stand the scrutiny of court and should not face the same fate as did the prohibition on the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, informed sources said. He said sufficient evidence should be collected before banning the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil said a lot of information on the two outfits had been collected and more was being gathered. At this, Mr. Prasad and Mr. Paswan expressed their displeasure over the “delay” in collecting evidence, pointing out that they had been demanding such action for long, the sources said. The outfits could be banned even while evidence was being collected, the two leaders said.

“No satisfactory response”

Mr. Patil, whom the Prime Minister asked at the last Cabinet meeting on October 3 to provide an assessment of the situation in Orissa, presented the State government’s report. He noted that the Centre had issued five notices and the response was “not satisfactory.”