CALCUTTA: Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar said his government favored the holding Lok Sabha elections in Assam and Punjab if the atmosphere was congenial in those two states “I want election to be held everywhere” he said.
The two states are trying to make a proper assessment of the situation if the election commission was satisfied necessary arrangements would have been made.
The prime minister denied press censorship had been imposed in Punjab recently but admitted that there were some restrictions on those papers which had become “regular bulletins” of the militants.
He said there were about 70 dailies coming out from Punjab and the government had not imposed any restriction on them “We had put the restriction only to curb militancy in the state” he said. To a question the prime minister said he had not proposed electoral adjustments with any party in West Bengal. _ ‘
About his meeting with Jyoti Basu in Delhi he said “it was a meeting between a Prime Minister and a thief minister The press had nothing to do with this”.
Chandra Shekhar dispelled speculations that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav would desert the Janata Dal(S) and said such reports were the “imagination of a section of the press”.
Mulayam Singh Yadav is still in our party he told a questioner at the Khudiram Anusilan Kendra here.
He said he felt sorry for the Gujarat Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel for having deserted the party and forming the Janata Da} (Gujarat).
Asked if he was apprehensive of any exodus from the Janata Dal (S) following the “Desertion” of Jagdeep Dhankar and some of his followers in Haryana he said “I feel pity for those who left our party”.
He also refutes the allegations that the Janata Dal (S) had entered into “secret understandings” with any political party or organisation for electoral gain.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 19, 1991
