The Hindu : National : UPA is squabbling, says BJP

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Friday, Feb 11, 2005

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National

UPA is squabbling, says BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 10. The unity displayed by the National Democratic Alliance in its protest against the dismissal of the Parrikar Government in Goa offers a contrast to the "squabbles" visible in the United Progressive Alliance, according to the Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

In Maharashtra, he said, the Congress played a tough game of nerves with its alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, and insisted on its own Chief Minister; in Bihar, the UPA had virtually unravelled and no one knew whether the Congress was for or against the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal; in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress fought the local body elections on its own, not with its partner, the People's Democratic Party; in Karnataka, the relations between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) were not quite right; and in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress was supporting the Samajwadi Party Government and the SP said it was supporting the UPA at the Centre, but the two parties were daily engaged in a verbal duel, Mr. Naqvi said today.

On the other hand, the NDA had displayed unity and the ability to rally together "in defence of democracy in Goa."

Commenting on the submission of the Nanavati Commission report to the Union Home Minister, Mr. Naqvi said that if the Government was doing the proper constitutional thing by not disclosing its contents before it was placed in Parliament, then why did it allow the Banerji committee report to be publicised? The BJP was not convinced that it was the differing status of the two — one was a judicial commission appointed under the Enquiries Act and the other was a committee appointed by the Railways Ministry — that allowed the Government to deal with them differently.

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