The Hindu : National : Congress, CPI(M) decline comment on EC action

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 22, 2004

National

National

Congress, CPI(M) decline comment on EC action

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 21. The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) today refrained from making comments on the Election Commission's action against the Rashtriya Janata Dal president, Lalu Prasad, but questioned the right of the Bharatiya Janata Party to raise it on moral grounds.

The Congress took the stand that the matter was between the EC and the RJD and that a case was registered against Mr. Prasad as the chief of a political party and not as Union Minister.

Sidestepping questions on how the party viewed the alleged act of the RJD chief distributing money, the Congress spokesperson, Anand Sharma, said it would await the response of the RJD to the EC and accept its verdict.

The CPI(M) Rajya Sabha leader, Nilotpal Basu, refused to comment on the issue but criticised the BJP for disrupting the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha, especially after the EC had taken action against Mr. Lalu Prasad.

Both the Congress and the CPI(M) questioned the BJP for talking of morality on the grounds that the party had failed to respond when poor women were killed in a stampede at a saree distribution function organised in Lucknow, the constituency of the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, by a senior BJP leader, Lalji Tandon, during the general elections earlier this year.

"How can the BJP now become a moral custodian,'' Mr. Basu asked.

The Congress accused the BJP of being "hypocritical and adopting double standards" and that the party had not raised the issue out of any deep conviction or for upholding moral values.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National