The Hindu : Front Page : BJP-ruled States asked to prepare law on terrorism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 13, 2004

Front Page

BJP-ruled States asked to prepare law on terrorism

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 12. The Chief Ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled States have been asked to prepare legislation to deal with terrorism to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in the event of the repeal of the Central law.

Dealing firmly with terrorism was one of the planks of the party's new "nationalist" ideology, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, told reporters at the end of the two-day conclave of the Chief Ministers.

The leadership told the Chief Ministers to continue to oppose the new school textbooks being planned by the United Progressive Alliance Government.

The "Left was pushing its ideology through red guards and the Chief Ministers should oppose the new textbooks being prepared by the UPA Government."

The Chief Ministers should push a population policy based on a two-child norm "for all sections of the population," the party said. It favoured a policy based on "incentives and disincentives," but details were not spelt out.

Mr. Naidu said the party wanted to send out the message that while the UPA Government and its supporting parties were "politicking," the BJP was serious about getting down to the business of "good governance."

Task force

Several decisions taken today flow from the party's wish to ensure "good governance" in States ruled by it. If the UPA had set up a committee to oversee implementation of its Common Minimum Programme, the BJP announced a five-member task force to be headed by the former External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, to ensure that its States had a plan to fulfil their election promises.

This task force would regularly meet the Chief Ministers, keep in mind the points made by business representatives on possible investment opportunities in the States, identify issues that could be taken up by the Centre, and cull out the "best practices" in each State to be emulated by others. This task force would report directly to Mr. Naidu.

Besides Mr. Sinha, other members of the committee will be Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie, Vijai Kapoor and Sudheendra Kulkarni.

It was decided that the Chief Ministers would submit a joint memorandum to the Finance Commission, which is to give its report by December this year, to raise the States' share of fund from the current 29.5 per cent to 40 per cent.

Self-help groups

The party wanted self-help groups to be set up in every village and it had asked the Chief Ministers to focus on literacy and health and strengthening of the panchayat system.

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