The Hindu : Front Page : Uma Bharti released

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Tuesday, Sep 07, 2004

Front Page

Uma Bharti released

By Our Special Correspondent

— AP

The former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharti, with her supporters after she was released at Dharwad on Monday.

HUBLI, SEPT. 6. The former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, today ruled out becoming Chief Minister again.

She told mediapersons here after her release from prison that when she proposed the name of Babulal Gaur as Chief Minister, he was to rule for the remaining term of the Assembly.

There was no change in her stand. She would like to remain a party worker and do whatever work the party entrusted to her.

Ms. Bharti said she would not like to become a "Super Chief Minister" like the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, who, she alleged, was acting as "Super Prime Minister".

On the increasing pressure put on her by her party workers in Madhya Pradesh to become Chief Minister again, Ms. Bharti said she would try to convince them.

About changes made by Mr. Gaur, she said she would not bother herself with such issues. Mr. Gaur would function as the full-fledged Chief Minister without anyone breathing down his neck.

On "tiranga (Tricolour) yatra", she said her party leaders would decide. She would visit Maharashtra to answer all charges being hurled against her.

A `victory'

Ms. Bharti described the withdrawal of the case against her as a "victory for nationalism."

It was time Congressmen and Ms. Gandhi "learnt a lesson" that politics in the name of the national tricolour would not cut ice with the people.

She said she had "nothing but pity" for the Karnataka Chief Minister, Dharam Singh. She advised him to "act on his own wisdom rather than be led by Ms. Gandhi."

She alleged that the party had tried to divide society on communal lines on the issue of vande mataram and now it was doing the same in the matter of national flag. She took exception to the advertisement released by the Congress about the case and her participation in the agitation for hoisting of the national flag here 10 years ago.

Asked whether she would hoist the national flag at the Bharatiya Janata Party office in New Delhi, Ms. Bharti said she would arrange a function and invite Ms. Gandhi to do it. "We will not get her arrested."

Ms. Bharti came out of the guesthouse that had been turned into a prison shortly before 4 p.m. and waved to the waiting crowd after getting on top of a car. She went to the house of Datta Dorle, BJP Hubli-Dharwad district unit president, who had undertaken the responsibility of supplying food to her.

A victory procession was taken out by the BJP here soon after court verdict.

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