The Hindu : Kerala News : Disband Congress, says Venkaiah Naidu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 26, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Disband Congress, says Venkaiah Naidu

By Our Special Correspondent

KOCHI, APRIL 25. In a tit-for-tat, the Bharatiya Janata Party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, today said the Congress should be disbanded and the `family company' closed down.

The Congress had demanded on Saturday that the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, should retire as he was unable to manage the allies in the National Democratic Alliance.

Addressing a party function held to welcome some Christian families in the city to the BJP, Mr. Naidu recalled that soon after Independence, Mahatma Gandhi had called for disbanding the Congress. Mr. Naidu alleged that the Congress was now a family-run company. "It is not even a public limited company; it is a private company run by a family," he added.

He said the present-day Congress was not the original but a "duplicate." It was just an "I" Congress and the party leaders' focus was on the "I." The Congress had no ideology, no sense of direction. The party was in a pathetic state as it had no leader. It was not sure of Sonia Gandhi's leadership and that was why it had fielded her children in the campaign, he said.

He claimed that many Congress leaders were leaving the party and joining the BJP. For instance, Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law (Maneka Gandhi) and grandson (Varun Gandhi) were with the BJP now, he said.

`Liberate Kerala'

After handing party membership to a dozen Christians in the city, representatives of some 250 Christian families waiting to join the BJP, the BJP president said it was time for the UDF and the LDF to move over and the NDA to take over.

"It's time to liberate the State from the UDF and the LDF. They have ruled and ruined Kerala. The NDA is coming and the voters should decide whether they want to be a part of development or to keep away from development," Mr. Naidu said.

He ridiculed the electoral `understanding' between the Congress and the Left parties saying that they were hand-in-hand at one place but at each other's throats elsewhere.

"It is `kusthi' (fighting) in Thiruvananthapuram, but `dosti' (friendship) in New Delhi between the Congress and the Communists," he commented.

Pointing to the Antony-Karunakaran rivalry in the Congress, Mr. Naidu said their open fights had become `vulgar' and predicted that the fights would resume after the elections were over. He alleged that Mr. Karunakaran was only concerned about his daughter and son while Mr. Antony was concerned about his `chair.' He termed today's function, where Christians had been given membership in the BJP, as a momentous one which the party had long been looking forward to. It showed that minorities were streaming into the party.

The BJP State president, P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, said that some 300 Christian families, from many denominations, would join the BJP. He also said by the time the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony's campaign tour arrived in the city, some Congressmen too would join the party. The BJP State secretary, A.N. Radhakrishnan, said the "inflow" of minorities' into the BJP showed that Kerala was changing too, along with the rest of the country.