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Stop projecting Sonia Gandhi: Sharief

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Dec. 28. The former Railway Minister and MP, C.K. Jaffer Sharief, has perhaps become the first Congress leader to publicly state that the party should stop projecting its president, Sonia Gandhi, as the prime ministerial candidate.

The Congress should not insist on Ms. Gandhi becoming the next Prime Minister while seeking alliances with other parties, Mr. Sharief said while addressing a function to mark the 118th anniversary of the party. The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, Janardhana Poojary, was present. The Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, could not attend the function as he was in Mysore to inaugurate the Indian History Congress.

Mr. Sharief said poll alliances should be worked out now and the choice of leadership left to the MPs of alliance parties after the elections. "Ms. Gandhi need not be projected as the future Prime Minister now itself." If the Congress gave up demanding the post for Ms. Gandhi, the other parties would come forward for an alliance. At present, they were hesitant to enter into a tie-up because of the Sonia Gandhi factor. The Congress should be prepared for a climbdown on the issue of who should lead the Government once the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was displaced, he said.

He had himself sounded the leaders of various political parties about alliances. Although they were agreeable to the idea in private, they were rejecting it in public because of the party's insistence on Ms. Gandhi heading the Government.

Mr. Sharief said the party was not strong enough to replace the BJP-led alliance on its own. It needed the help of other parties. He said the Congress should be able to secure partners when the BJP could, despite claiming to represent the Hindus. The Congress, which had been championing the cause of minorities and weaker sections, should have no problem on this count.

Mr. Sharief has, in recent months, hit out at the State Government stating that it was not working for the welfare of minorities. One of the senior most Congress MPs, Mr. Sharief, who represents Bangalore North, has been elected for the eighth time, seven times from the same constituency.

Mr. Poojary accused the NDA Government of ulterior motives in entrusting the investigation of the stamp paper racket to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There were several factors that raised doubts about the Centre's motives. One of them was why the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, who holds the Home portfolio, received the advocate for the prime accused in the case, Abdul Kareem Telgi. It was the Congress Government in the State, which was responsible for the arrest of Telgi and most of his associates after investigation. The State police charge-sheeted the accused and obtained court orders for holding them in jail. The conversations of Telgi with his associates over mobile telephone from the jail had been monitored. It would help in revealing at the appropriate time the names of persons he was in touch.

Mr. Poojary said his party Government had brought to the notice of the Centre the lapses that led to high security printing equipment falling into the hands of unscrupulous persons. The Chief Minister abolished the use of stamp papers for documentation. New Delhi seemed to have been oblivious to all those decisions till recently. Telgi himself wanted the cases against him handled by the CBI, he added.

The former Law Minister, Haranahalli Ramaswamy, said the time had come for the Congress to cease to be a political party and start a socio-economic movement. Mr. Ramaswamy was of the view that the Congress was the only alternative to the BJP and it should not depend on regional parties for survival

M.V. Rajashekaran, member of the Rajya Sabha, recalled that Mahatma Gandhi had said that people would shun the Congress if it forgot its legacy of service and sacrifice and hankered after power.

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