M A I N   N E W S

Sushma takes on Sonia point by point
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 19
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today refuted Congress charges on the NDA government’s failure and took a dig at Congress President Sonia Gandhi by launching a point by point rebuttal of her observations on undermining parliamentary democracy, misuse of institutions, and issues related to foreign policy and national security.

Participating in the debate on the Congress initiated no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, Mrs Swaraj launched a scathing counter-attack on the Congress charges by recalling that Parliament was “misused” to bring about a constitutional amendment for keeping the Prime Minister’s Office above law during Indira Gandhi’s tenure.

This was done in 1975 in the wake of the Allahabad High Court ruling which held as null and void her election to the Lok Sabha and the Supreme Court had only granted a conditional stay on the high court’s ruling, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister said. On the contrary, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had always insisted that the Prime Minister’s Office should not be above law and it be brought under the purview of the Lokpal Bill, she said.

Moreover, the minister said the Prime Minister, if he wished, could have withdrawn all cases from the CBI against his party colleagues, she added.

Responding to the Congress charge that the NDA government had abandoned an independent foreign policy and was working under the pressure of other countries, she said, if it was true then the government would not have conducted Pokhran tests. Though the , then, US President Bill Clinton had imposed economic sanctions in the wake of the tests, the NDA government had the courage not to plead for the lifting of the sanctions during Mr Clinton’s visit to India.

During her speech, which lasted for more than an hour and punctuated by frequent and vociferous interventions from Congress members, Mrs Swaraj asked the Congress President to brush up her knowledge about her party’s history to or else “you would have to face embarrassment”.

The Congress, the minister said, had acquired “great expertise” in bringing down elected governments and the Haryana Government of 1980 was a case in point.

Detailing the achievement of the government, she referred to the fields of telecom, petroleum, uplinking of TV channels, kisan credit card, food security programme, highway development and tackling of the dreaded SARS, as the high points of the government’s performance.