The Hindu : National : NDA to move privilege motions against Patil, Pranab

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Friday, Dec 10, 2004

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NDA to move privilege motions against Patil, Pranab

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 9. A meeting of the National Democratic Alliance leaders here today unanimously decided that while it will pursue an aggressive parliamentary strategy — as part of this its members will be movingprivilege motions against the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, and the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee — it will not disturb question hour or stall the functioning of Parliament.

Congress ad blitz

The meeting chaired by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, NDA chairman, took "strong exception" to the "waste of tax-payers' money" through the "sycophantic advertisement blitz" by the Congress State Governments today on the occasion of the birthday of the United Progressive Alliance chairman, Sonia Gandhi.

A resolution was adopted at the NDA meeting condemning this "gross political impropriety."

However, the NDA convener, George Fernandes, and the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson, V.K. Malhotra, who jointly addressed a press conference, were asked whether a similar impropriety had been committed by the Rajasthan Government, which had issued advertisements in which Mr. Vajpayee and BJP president, L.K. Advani, had figured. They did not respond.Asked about government money being spent on the "Shining India" campaign in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election in May, they said that it was legitimate for the government to spend money to publicise its achievements.Besides the issue of Congress advertisements, a discussion was also held on how best to corner the UPA Government. It was decided that while a privilege notice had been given by P.C. Thomas (Indian Federal Democratic Party) other members would also send privilege notices against the two Cabinet Ministers, Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan, for "misleading" the House vis-a-vis their public allegations against each other. (Yesterday, Mr. Prasad denied he had levelled charges of corruption against Mr. Paswan, and today Mr. Paswan said he had not criticised any Cabinet Minister but had only commented on the functioning of the Bihar Government).

`Contradictory'

More important, Mr. Malhotra charged that Mr. Patil and Mr. Mukherjee had made "contradictory" statements on infiltration and terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. The Opposition leaders alleged that while Mr. Patil had claimed that infiltration had come down, Mr. Mukherjee yesterday admitted that it had recently increased.

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