NEW DELHI: Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, R.K.Dhawan and Union Minister of State for Planning Sukh Ram have sharply criticized Arjun Singh’s now famous letter. Their criticism follows Union Minister Rajesh Pilot’s attack on Arjun Singh a day after Singh released his letter to the Press, Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh who is a member of the Congress Disciplinary Committee, said it did not be have a senior and seasoned leader like Arjun Singh to air his views on sensitive issues in the open, The issue should first have been discussed at the proper forum within the party, he added, The Punjab Chief Minister, who is a nominated member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), paid glowing tributes to Narasimha Rao’s leader, the Prime Minister for his “pragmatic” handling of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. Such handling had defused the tension across the country, he said. Dhawan too has disapproved of Arjun Singh’s act of writing the letter to Jitendra Prasada. Ina letter to Singh he pointed out that as a senior member of the CWC and the Cabinet, Arjun Singh could well have discussed the matter across the table with the Dhawan seemed to fee] that Singh was perhaps blowing the Ayodhya issue out of proportion. He pointed out that while there was lite doubt that it was a major issue, there were other equally weighty, if not weightier, problems like Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and unemployment which also needed attention.
Sukh Ram also “strongly disapproved” of Singh’s action of “unnecessarily raking up issues in the press without forums.
Terming the act as “the politics of one up man ship” which was “against the tradition of Congress,” the minister hoped that Arjun Singh would realize his mistake and make “suitable amends” in the matter.
In his letter, Singh had demanded that a special meeting of party leaders from non-Congress-ruled States be convened to formalize a strategy to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The six-page letter to Jitendra Prasada, the Political Secretary to Congress President P.V.Narasimha Rao, also called for the drawing up of an “unambiguous and activist line of action” to be followed by party men in non-Congress-ruled states.
Narasimha Rao himself has not reacted to the letter. Party sources said that he had instructed Jitendra Prasada to ascertain the views of CWC members on the issue and then reply to Singh accordingly.
However, the series of statements which have followed Singh’s letter gives the impression of an orchestrated attack on him and it intimates that the party leadership is engaged in an exercise to isolate the HRD minister in the CWC.
Arjun Singh already seems to have been pushed on the defensive by the strongly worded statements which have followed his letter. Singh told newspersons that his letter to Jitendra Prasada, was being deliberately misinterpreted in an action of the media.
He said the letter had been projected in some quarters as some kind of a confrontation between him and Narasimha Rao.
There is no question of a confrontation with the Prime Minister as the purpose of the letter was to expedite the course of action the Congress President had himself desired,” he said.
Singh stressed that his call was “in fact for a confrontation with the forces of communalism and obscurantism.”
This is a concern shared by the silent majority of Congressmen,” he added.
Singh is also understood to have written a letter to Rajesh Pilot explaining his stand on the issue. Pilot has hit out a t the former,
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 21, 1992
