NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came down heavily on both the Prime Minister and the Left parties for their role in the Presidential and Vice Presidential elections.

P.V.Narasimha Rao’s explanation that the Vice President’s post cannot be discussed unless there is a vacancy “hardly carries any conviction,” BJP Vice President Krishan Lal Sharma said in a statement.

He pointed out that the vacancy for the Vice President’s post was a logical consequence to Rao’s attempt at a consensus with opposition parties over Shankar Dayal Sharma’s nomination for the Presidential office. Various options for the Vice President ship with the opposition parties but in a clever move wanted to delink the consensus approach for the two posts,” the BJP leader said.

According to him, the consensus bid could not succeed because of Rao’s impatience to grab both posts for the Congress. The Prime Minister must take the blame for this, he said.

Sharma charged the CPM and the CPI with betraying the opposition’s cause and said they owed an explanation to the people as to what compelled them to support a Congress presidential candidate “without securing of positive commitment from the Prime Minister for a non-Congress candidate for Vice President ship.”

The situation, he said had provided the opposition with a rare opportunity and if they had stood drifted, they could have posed a formidable threat to the Congress candidate. If the CPM and the CPI had remained firm on wining the two posts, the Congress would have yielded one post to the opposition, he claimed.

By betraying the cause of the Opposition at a crucial moment, the Left parties have once again repeated the history of proving to be ‘outdoor agents’ of the Congress in the opposition. Nothing could be more ridiculous on the part of the Left parties than to support a Congress Presidential candidate on the one hand and supporting a no-confidence motion against the Congress Government on the other,” he said.

Sharma pleaded that the Presidential contest not be seen as one of individuals but one of principles and everyone solidly support G.G.Swell for the high office. Meanwhile, in another statement, BJP Vice President K.R.Malkani called for a judicial or parliamentary inquiry the possible involvement of any ministers in the blank scam,

According to Malkani, while the Prime Minister at his press conference had stated that any minister found involved in it would not be in his ministry, the Finance Minister had already given a clean chit to all his ministerial colleagues.

How will the country know if some ministers were involved, unless we have a judicial or parliamentary inquiry?” the BJP leader asked.

He charged that the banks and their mutual funds which bought the public sector unit shares were acting as surrogates for some foreign banks.

“These foreign banks are repatriating more profits than all other foreign companies put together,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Bofors scandal “continues to be a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an Enigma,” he said, adding that no one believed that without the  consent or against the will of the Prime Minister could have handed over the mystery note to his Swiss counterpart.

The Prime Minister may smile and smile and talk of consensus but he cannot smile away these super-scandals that are eating into the vitals of our national economy and polity,” Malkani said.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 17, 1992