Govt not to reiterate demand

NEW DELHI, Sept 30 (PTI) — The government is "at present" sticking to its stand not to reiterate recommendation for imposing Central rule in Bihar following its rejection by President K. R. Narayanan, Home Minister L K Advani said today.

Mr Advani said during his meeting with the President yesterday, he had discussed several issues including the Bihar situation. This does not imply that the government is in any way reviewing the stand taken by the Union Cabinet on Saturday, a Home Ministry spokesman said.

The Cabinet had on Saturday decided not to reiterate its recommendation for imposition of Central rule in Bihar in the wake of President Narayanan’s advice to the government to reconsider the decision.

Stating that the Home Minister’s 30-minute meeting with the president had led to speculation in the media, the spokesman quoted Mr Advani as saying the government was "at present sticking to the stand taken by the Cabinet on Saturday as there was no further discussion on the matter."

The Home Minister had said after Saturday’s meeting that "in deference to the wishes of the President, the Cabinet decided not to pursue the matter further (Mamle ko agey nahin badhayenge)."

TNS adds: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday condemned the abusive language used by the Rashtriya Janata Dal president, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav against the Bihar Governor, Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari saying it was an "indirect attack on the President" who appoints governors".

Wondering over the silence of political parties including the Congress, Mr Naidu appealed to "all well-meaning people and to those who believe in norms and rule of law" to condemn this.

The general secretary said the state unit of the BJP would meet in Patna on October 4 to chalk out a programme of action for exposing the double standards of the Rabri Devi government and its supporting parties including the Congress. Mr Naidu said the state unit would launch a public opinion drive against the "jungle raj" of the state government.

On his meeting with the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, Mr Naidu said that "we have asked him to prepare a white paper on Article 356 with details of how it had been used and misused on earlier occasions". He said, "Mr Advani has assured me that the government will consider the party’s demand on the matter".

Earlier, Mr Naidu congratulated the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, for his "highly successful" visit to the United Nations and France.

The Prime Minister’s visit has "enabled India to place its viewpoint before the world community on three major issues namely, disarmament, terrorism and reforming of the UN", Mr Naidu said. He said Mr Vajpayee’s discussions with French leaders for a strategic Indo-French dialogue would be mutually beneficial and "we applaud the French government for the same".

Article 356: No need for debate: TN CM

TIRUCHIRAPALLI, Sept 30 (UNI) — Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said that there was no need for a national debate on the use of Article 356 of the Constitution as suggested by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Talking to newsmen at the airport here, he said there was no need for such a debate because both the Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court had laid some norms for the dismissal of state governments when the S R Bommai government had been dismissed in the late 1980s.

The matter had already been discussed several times at the inter-state council meetings during the United Front regime when the Tamil Nadu Government had stated that the Article should be deleted from the Constitution.

The DMK had also made it clear at the National Development Council meetings that the Article should be removed and state autonomy ensured, while the party still stood for the concept of a federal government at the Centre.

To a question, Mr Karunanidhi said if the Centre again recommended to the President the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government in Bihar, the DMK would convene a meeting of its allies and decide on observing a state-wide bandh in protest against it.

Giving statistics of crimes that had taken place in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh during 1997, he said there were 5,317 murders in Bihar and 7,418 in Uttar Pradesh.

There had been 1,318 rape incidents in Bihar as against 1,182 in Uttar Pradesh. There were also 2,856 incidents of waylaying and robbery in Bihar and 3,356 in Uttar Pradesh, he added.

Mr Karunanidhi alleged that the situation in Delhi, where the BJP was in power, was even worse.

To a question, he asserted the DMK would fight against toppling of any state government in the country.

Asked to comment on Union Commerce Minister and Lok Shakti leader Ramakrishna Hegde’s stand on imposing President’s rule in Bihar and his latest demand that the Centre should again send its recommendations to the President, Mr Karunanidhi said he had read three different stands adopted by Mr Hegde on the Bihar issue in newspapers in the recent days.

The DMK would neither lose its identity nor give up the ideologies of the party founder leader late C.N. Annadurai if it joined the proposed third front, Mr Karunanidhi said.

He said the constituents of the national front might be the members of the proposed front.

On CPM leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu’s proposed meeting with him to discuss the formation of the third front, Mr Karunanidhi said he came to know about it only from a Tamil paper.

Referring to BJP state secretary L. Ganesan’s reported demand that the Coimbatore serial bomb blasts cases should be tried in special courts, he said the state government had already issued an order on September 25 last for setting up of special courts at Chennai and Coimbatore.