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Thursday, Sep 30, 2004

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National

Government provoking confrontation: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 29. The Bharatiya Janata Party has charged the Government with provoking another confrontation with the Opposition — by setting up a Group of Ministers (GoM) reportedly to recommend criminal investigations into scandals during the tenure of the Vajpayee Government. The party has warned that the winter session of Parliament could be stalled.

The party vice-president and spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, today virtually threatened that if the Government continued with its "destructive" and "confrontationist" attitude, it could not expect cooperation from the Opposition benches when the winter session of Parliament began in November-December.

Mr. Naqvi said: "So far there have been two parliamentary sessions since the Manmohan Singh Government took office in May. The first session was marred because the Government chose to replace Governors with a [Rashtriya Swayamsevak] `Sangh' background and because the Government inducted tainted Ministers ... they invited confrontation and non-cooperation. In the second session, the Government again invited confrontation as it replaced the [V.D.] Savarkar plaque at the Andamans memorial and arrested [former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister] Uma Bharti.

"About one month is left for the winter session and it is unfortunate that a GoM has been set up to look at the alleged land scam [involving RSS organisations], the coffin scandal and the purchase of AK47s scam."

`Wrong attitude'

Asked whether he expected trouble during the winter session, Mr. Naqvi said: "A destructive ruling party cannot expect a constructive Opposition."

Responding to questions, he said he was not objecting to inquiries being held, but the manner in which a GoM had been set up as it indicated a wrong attitude on the Government's part. He said that instead of worrying about the "aam admi [common man]" and addressing their problems, the Government was pursuing the Opposition. "They have a BJP-RSS phobia," he added.

He said the Government had been in office for 127 days and during that period there had been 127 problems between the ruling alliance and the Left parties and others.

"We cannot just sit back and wait for elections to enable people to give their verdict on the functioning of the Government. If Parliament is stalled during the winter session, the ruling parties alone will be responsible.''

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