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Intervene in WB: Laxman

HYDERABAD, Sept 16 (UNI) — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Bangaru Laxman today urged the Centre to immediately intervene in West Bengal and declare the violent-hit districts “disturbed areas” saying the situation there was “serious”.

Addressing a press conference here, he said if it was not possible for the Centre to invoke Article 356 because of certain limitations, it should take other appropriate action.

He said several districts should be declared “disturbed” to save democracy and enable the Opposition to carry out legitimate political activities in the state.

Mr Laxman said he would visit the state on September 23 “to personally see the situation” in these districts.

He said the law and order situation in many districts, where a large number of Trinamool Congress and BJP workers were killed, was “bad”.

The Left parties, he said, were jittery that their reign would come to an end in the next elections.

Mr Laxman said the party’s national executive committee meeting, to be held early next month, would draw up programmes and fix targets for various morchas for reaching out to different social segments as part of the expansion of its social base.

Referring to his call to Muslims at Nagpur to join the BJP, he claimed it had been well-received by the Muslims, though the Opposition had made negative comments about it.

Mr Laxman said he was receiving a number of Muslim delegations everyday as well as thousands of letters, telegrams and fax messages from all over the country from the Muslims.

The fact that the audience at yesterday’s meeting addressed by him at Kanpur mostly consisted of Dalits, Muslims and those from Backward Classes showed that the Nagpur message had gone down well with these sections of society, he claimed.

Referring to the US trip of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mr Laxman said it had generated a lot of goodwill and the prospects of investments had increased. “The proclaimed sanctions may remain just on paper but everything else will be normalised.”

He said Mr Vajpayee’s speech at the UN General Assembly, in which he had given a call for signing of an international convention to curb terrorism and put an end to cross-border terrorism, had found support from many countries.