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Friday,
January 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Barnala to
assume charge as AP Governor today BJP
‘distorting’ Ambedkar’s views Cong may
take back HVC leaders VHP flays
PM’s Goa musings Oppn
‘unnerved’ by PM’s views |
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Fog
disrupts air, rail traffic Cabinet
meeting Kayaking
expedition from Jan 5
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Barnala to assume charge as AP Governor today New Delhi, January 2 Even though Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu preferred an eminent scientist or seasoned bureaucrat as Governor in succession to Mr C. Rangarajan who is taking over as the Chairman of the Tenth Finance Commission next week, the choice had narrowed down to Mr Barnala or senior BJP leader and Governor of Kerala Sikander Bahkt. Mr Naidu had considered renowned agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan and a few others for occupying Raj Bhavan but it fell through because they were preoccupied with their scientific activities. Even in Dr Rangarajan’s case, Mr Naidu had succeeded in having his way in his appointment as the Governor as he desired an eminent person to advise the State government on key economic matters and development. Prior to being appointed the Governor, Dr Rangarajan was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. His stint as Governor ended on November 22. This time Mr Naidu reached a dead end in zeroing in on a person of his choice for the post of the Governor. The Chief Minister was left with no alternative but to choose from a list empanelled by the Vajpayee government. He plumped for Mr Barnala rather than Mr Bahkt during consultations that the Centre had with Mr Naidu. After assuming charge as the Governor tomorrow, Mr Barnala is expected to return here tomorrow evening as he has a function to attend in Barnala on Saturday. The septuagenarian Mr Barnala was appointed Governor of the newly carved out hill state of Uttaranchal in November 2000 and prior to that in 1990 had been Governor of Tamil Nadu. He resigned as Governor of Tamil Nadu as he refused to dismiss the DMK government headed by Mr M.Karunanidhi as recommended by the then Samajwadi Janata Party government headed by Mr Chandra Shekhar at the Centre. Mr Barnala attained a law degree from Lucknow University in 1946. He took part in the Quit India Movement as a student and was arrested. He started his law practice in the then Nabha state after Partition. In 1967, he successfully contested the Assembly on an Akali ticket and represented the Barnala constituency in one form or another. He was Education Minister in Punjab in 1969. During Emergency, Mr Barnala was jailed for 14 months. In 1977 he was elected to the Lok Sabha and served as Agriculture and Food and Irrigation Minister in the Janata government headed by Morarji Desai from 1977 to 1979. After the assassination of Harchand Singh Longowal, Mr Barnala was elected president of the SAD and became Chief Minister of Punjab after a landslide win in 1985. But he had to face difficult times during militancy in Punjab. He successfully contested the Lok Sabha elections in 1996 and 1998. |
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BJP ‘distorting’ Ambedkar’s views New Delhi, January 2 Asserting that the Gujarat experiment would not be allowed to replicate elsewhere in the country, Mr Udit Raj, chairman of the recently launched Justice Party, said the BJP had “never dared before” to co-opt Dr Ambedkar’s ideology until it entered into an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Vinay Katiyar, head of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP, had made a call to realise the dreams of Dr Ambedkar and Dr Hedgewar through “cultural nationalism,” he said. “This smacks of an exercise in blatant falsehood and slandering by the BJP, which has tried to disgrace Dr Ambedkar’s personality and his thought process.” Mr Udit Raj, also the chairman of All-India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, said Mr Katiyar was trying to give a distorted view of Dr Ambedkar’s observations that Muslims should go back to Pakistan in the event of the country’s partition. Quoting from Dr Amedkar’s book “Thought on Pakistan” (1944), he said the late leader was totally opposed to the division of the country. However, he had supported the mass emigration of Muslims to Pakistan if the country was divided as it would have made their condition in a caste-ridden India intolerable, explained Mr Udit Raj. |
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Cong may take back
HVC leaders New Delhi, January 2 Sources said many HVC leaders were in touch with the Congress leadership and there was talk of even taking back former Telecommunications Minister Sukh Ram. However, many senior Congress leaders in the state, including former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, are opposed to any association with the HVC. The reason for the Congress not closing any doors at this stage is its eagerness to prevent a split in the “secular votes.” In Himachal Pradesh, where constituencies are small, a marginal shift in votes can change the results. Many Congress candidates had lost by narrow margins in the last elections, in which the BJP and the Congress had small difference in their seats. An additional worry for the Congress is the possibility of the NCP, the Samajwadi Party and the Lok Janshakti Party contesting a large number of seats in the state. Though AICC general secretary Mohsina Kidwai, who is in charge of Himachal Pradesh, has indicated that the Congress will like to go alone in the state, she has not ruled out any possibility. Sources said talks were being held with some leaders of the HVC at the state level with the knowledge of the Congress high command. Senior AICC leaders here indicated that “winnability” would be the main criterion in deciding party tickets. |
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VHP flays PM’s Goa musings New Delhi, January 2 Indirectly describing Mr Vajpayee’s interpretation as “pseudo-Hindutva”, VHP Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore said he didn’t see any difference between the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani for “as a politician — I don’t have faith in Advani.” “A political party which makes all kinds of compromises to draw political mileage and save its chair has no right to make such comments, which we strongly oppose,” he said here. In his musings, Mr Vajpayee had described as unacceptable the projection of Hindutva in a narrow, rigid and extremist manner by some people. “A Hindu can never be narrow, rigid or extremist, but reaction to any action cannot be termed as wrong,” the VHP leader said in an apparent reference to the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat. Ridiculing Mr Vajpayee’s “new interpretation” of Hindutva, he said, “Possibly in his view, Hindutva could be interpreted.” Without directly naming Mr Vajpayee, he said: “One newspaper had described such views as pseudo-Hindutva.” On whether the VHP agreed with the description, Acharya Kishore said, “Vajpayee has not named us, we are also not naming him. Neither the opposition parties accept his interpretation nor those he claims to be part of,” adding that “We oppose his views and exhort all Hindus to come together in the fight against terrorism and to build a grand temple at Ayodhya. We have lost faith in politicians. Their stand depends on the elections.” Claiming that the VHP
was "betrayed and cheated” on the Ram temple issue, he said: “In Parliament, Ram temple was described as a national issue while in Lucknow, the Prime Minister had announced it would be solved before March 12, 2002. However, when the religious leaders met him on January 27, he said he had not made any such promise.” Asked whether he agreed with VHP supremo Ashok Singhal’s statement that Mr Advani’s rath yatra had damaged the cause of the temple, he said, “Even before the Liberhan Commission inquiring into the demolition, I had stated that the political parties have earned their dividends.” To a question whether Mr Advani was better than Mr Vajpayee in the VHP’s view, he said: “I do not want to be a judge. Both are equal to us.” MUMBAI: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Thursday came down heavily against his party’s long-time ally, the BJP, saying that the latter was “confused” on the interpretation of Hindutva and their top leaders were speaking in different voices on the same. “Our 17-year-old alliance with the BJP is based on Hindutva. But the party keeps changing its attitude on the issue from time to time. Its top leaders Vajpayee and Advani speak in different voices on Hindutva,” he told reporters after the release of an album at his residence. Referring to Mr Vajpayee’s musings, he said while the Prime Minister emphasised on moderate Hindutva, other leaders of his party were speaking in a different manner on the same issue. |
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Oppn ‘unnerved’ by PM’s views New Delhi, January 2 “What the Prime Minister has said was in keeping with the party’s views on Hindutva and this has completely unnerved our political opponents who are now trying to find fault with our concept of cultural nationalism which was an idea propounded by renowned poet Rabindranath
Tagore,” party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told newspersons here. “Those aspiring for power have been thwarted as they have not been able to successfully counter cultural nationalism with their version of secularism... These pseudo-secularists have been exposed.” “Hindutva or ‘Bharatiyata’ which is true nationalism was the only guarantee for maintaining the secular character of the country,” he said. Stating that the BJP’s focus in the coming Assembly poll would be security and development, Mr Naqvi said “but the repeated attack by the Opposition on Hindutva may result in ‘pseudo-secularism vs cultural nationalism’ once again becoming a poll issue.” Replying to a question on whether the party supported the construction of temples in Kashi and Mathura as stated by Uttar Pradesh unit president Vinay
Katiyar, he said: “These two are not on our agenda.” |
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Sajjan’s acquittal: BJP dharna today New Delhi, January 2 The delegation led by Delhi BJP chief Madan Lal Khurana met Mr Advani and submitted a memorandum requesting for his immediate intervention in the matter, BJP MLA H.S. Bali told newspersons here. Besides Mr Khurana and Mr Bali, the delegation comprised members from the Delhi BJP Sikh Cell and Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee. Mr Bali announced that the Sikh Cell of the Delhi BJP would organise a dharna at Raj Ghat tomorrow to express anguish and anger of the community. A Delhi court
acquitted Sajjan Kumar on December 23 because of the lack of evidence to connect him with offences like spreading communal disharmony, rioting and instigating mob to loot and murder, as cited by the CBI in its charge sheet. |
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Fog disrupts air, rail traffic New Delhi, January 2 The India Meteorological Department office said dense fog had spread across the region in Punjab and Haryana, parts of Rajasthan and along the Gangetic plains. The fog was expected tomorrow also, it said. The dense fog enveloping the region after two days of downpour affected visibility resulting in traffic jams in various parts of the city. It said rainfall that left a lot of moisture in the air had caused the fog. The radiation cooling of these vapours led to fog. It would linger on for the next few days. Radiation cooling happened when the water vapours got trapped in the lower layer of atmosphere. While all domestic flights were running behind schedule by about four hours, a Chandigarh-bound flight had to be cancelled, Indian Airlines said, adding that some of the flights had been clubbed and some others had been rescheduled. An Airport Authority of India spokesman said some flights of international carriers were diverted to Mumbai as a result of the fog. Air traffic at the Delhi airport came to a standstill with no flights taking off or landing since late last night after a thick blanket of fog engulfed the Capital. The Railways said more than 40 trains were delayed and the North East Express from New Delhi to Guwahati was rescheduled for 1150 hrs from 0645 hrs. The arrival of 44 trains at Delhi was delayed by up to 14 hours. These included the Shramjeevi Express, Lal Quila Express, Golden Temple Mail, Tamil Nadu Express, Brahmaputra Express, A.P. Express, Prayagraj, Shaheed Express and Rajdhani Express from Mumbai Central, among others. A spokesman for the Jet Airways said flights from and to Delhi were delayed by more than five hours. Operations, however, resumed with an improvement in visibility around 11 am, a UNI report said. The Jet Airways was unable to operate four Boeing flights due to bad weather. |
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Cabinet
meeting New Delhi, January 2 |
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Kayaking
expedition from Jan 5 Dehra Dun, January 2 The expedition, called the ‘Himalaya to Ganga Sagar expedition, 2003’, will be led by Mr Tarun K. Roy of the adventure wing of the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN). |
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