CALCUTTA: Confident that midterm elections will be held in May 1993, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has said he is sure that P.V. Narasimha Rao is the country’s last Congress Prime Minister.
Addressing a crowded Press Conference in Calcutta on Feb.2, Singh said, “The scattered and directionless government at the Center had failed on all fronts, Ayodhya and infiltration just being two cases in point. Equally glaring was the failure to provide economic succor despite all the fluff proffered in the name of liberalization. The combined effect of such failures was that Parliament had lost its representative character, with the people and legislators no longer talking in the same voice. He said the coming Union Budget would test the resolve of the Left Front to prevent the Congress from falling apart. Especially since newfangled economic policies. Asked if the BJP had backtracked on its earlier commitment to support the move towards increased privatization, Singh said his party had never supported the Center’s economic policies. Asked if the BJP had backtracked on is earlier commitment to support the move towards increased privatization, Singh said his party had never supported the Center’s economic policies in to. The principal difference lay in the fact that the BJP’s priorities lay in first encouraging self-employment, followed by a healthy cooperative sector, and thus in turn by the private sector, last on the list being the PSUs. Excessive and unchecked foreign investment could endanger the country’s economic independence as was the case at present. Thus the Budget session, he emphasized, would give the BJP the opportunity to “dethrone” the Congress government by generating public opinion against its economic policies.
Dwelling on the idea of one history, he said India was unfortunately the only country which demarcated different periods after the name of aggressors like Mughal, British etc. Small wonder then that separatist tendencies were still deeply ingrained in the subconscious of people.
When told that the Aryans too were aggressors, Singh said that is what the English would have us believe, the truth being entirely different. To that extent Ayodhya had forced people to sit up and change the agenda for debate in the coming years. The terms of reference stood altered, and futur generations would look upon Dec.6,1992, as a turning point in its history.
Singh said Muslims would be safest under BJP rule since his party was the only one which would treat them as “proper citizens.”
Article extracted from this publication >> February 5, 1993
