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Congress intolerant, says NDA

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 24. At a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance MPs here today, two resolutions were adopted — one of them blamed the Congress for an "intolerant attitude towards opponents'' and holding the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, "directly responsible for ordering the Karnataka Government'' to "reopen" the Uma Bharti case.

The second (resolution) criticised the United Progressive Alliance Government for the "indefensible insult'' to V.D. Savarkar when it decided not to install a plaque in his memory at the cellular jail in the Andamans.

The 45-minute meeting was chaired by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was quoted by the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson, V.K. Malhotra, as saying: "The [political] fight [with the UPA] is at our doorstep. We have to win. We [the NDA] have to take all the decisions together and strengthen the NDA in the larger national interest.''

Mr. Malhotra said the UPA had made a "blatant attempt to protect several tainted Ministers."

The Opposition would aggressively continue to raise issues related to the Savarkar plaque, the Uma Bharti episode and the "tainted" Ministers in the UPA. "I do not think the House will function.''

In fact, the NDA decided at the meeting not to allow Parliament to function except to pass the Finance Bill.

It concluded later in the afternoon that creating a din during the passing of the Finance Bill would make the Opposition look bad, and, therefore, it decided to ask the Government to pass the Bill without a debate and without noisy protests from the Opposition benches.

'Unconditional release'

Mr. Malhotra said the BJP wanted the "unconditional release'' of Ms. Bharti in the event of her being arrested. He blamed the UPA Government for "creating new issues'' and held it responsible for the stalling of Parliament. He denied that the Opposition would abdicate its responsibility by not discussing the Finance Bill.

The party claimed that on her train journey from Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka, Ms. Bharti was "welcomed by huge crowds everywhere."

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