The Hindu : "A case for President's intervention"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

"A case for President's intervention"

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 16. The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has asked the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, to publicly take back his statement that he will consider arming villagers to counter and contain the violence of People's War during the elections.

Such statements, the PUCL president, K. G. Kannabiran, said in a press release here on Monday, caused grave concern and apprehensions of violence in the people before and during the elections.

"A copy of this statement is sent to the President so that he may be advised not to precipitate matters and invite Presidential intervention in the interregnum," he added. He explained that the PUCL was adopting this course for preventing outbreak of violence which might prevent the election process itself.

Stating that Mr. Naidu's statement had disturbed not only many political parties but quite a few right-thinking people as well, he asserted that it had also raised several questions which the Chief Minister would have to answer to sustain his position.

Mr. Kannabiran pointed out that the Chief Minister had taken an oath that he would act according to the Constitution while entering the Assembly and later assuming the office of Chief Minister. He could not now say that naxalites could be dealt with as he liked since they had no respect for the Constitution. "Does the Chief Minister think that with the dissolution of the House, the oath he has taken expires?"

He held that inciting people to pre-emptive attack or to prepare them to form themselves into unlawful assembly could not be defined as private defence. Wondering about the capacity in which Mr. Naidu had given the call to villagers, he said that as caretaker Chief Minister, he had no representative character which he had before the dissolution of the House.

The PUCL president contended that such statements had led to arrests on preventive grounds of several persons in the past as they had the quality of disrupting public order. The Home Ministry could perceive this as constitutional breakdown, viewing the call to people as an invitation to civil strife, he said.

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Andhra Pradesh