NEW DELHI: Rajiv Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the ruling National Front government, holding it responsible for failure on all fronts, aggravating the situation in sensitive North Indian border stare of Kashmir by design and ironing secessionist elements in the southern state of Tamil Nadu strongly hit out at the government’s allies—the rightist Bharitya Janata Party and the left parties— saying they could not escape the responsibility for “the acts of omission and commission of this government.”
The BJP and the Left Front were both, in their respective ways attempting to distance themselves from the failure of the government, but they could not deceive either the country or the people, said the All India Congress Committee resolution, moved by the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Arjun Singh.
Gandhi and the resolution took note of the BJP president L K Advani’s call to his party to prepare for a midterm poll and said this was a clear admission of the National Front’s complete failure to rule the country.
The Congress I president, Rajiv Gandhi admitted there might have been “some mistakes” by the party in dealing with the RamjanambhoomiBabri Masjid issue and said it had paid the price.
The Babri Masjid issue is a conflict over the construction of the temple at the site where the Babri Mosque popularly said to be built by the 14th century ruler, Babur. This escalated into the major Hindu Muslim divide. The Hindus the want to restore the temple at the site which is the mythical birthplace of the Hindu god, Rama. The dispute is awaiting the verdict of the special bench of the high court.
Addressing the AICC session before it took up for discussion the draft political resolution here, Gandhi said this issue was responsible for the biggest increase in communalism in the country.
He said the ruling National Front government was hardly taking any steps to have a discussion on the issue and accused it of not having any policy to find a solution.
Gandhi said the Congress felt that an out of court amicable settlement was the best solution to the problem. If this was not possible, then the concerned parties should abide by the court verdict, he added.
Gandhi warned that if the right wing Bharitya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a fundamentalist organisation, attempted to raise the “biggest movement” to support the cause for building a temple at the controversial site at Ayodhya, “we will raise even a bigger movement to oppose it”
On the Kashmir issue, the CWC (I) said before November 1989 when the Congress (I) was in power, there was no Kashmir problem. The National Front government allowed the situation to drift in the sensitive border state, it charged.
On Punjab, the resolution said the Congress (I) government had rid four fifths of Punjab of militants, barring a few districts, life had returned to normal in the state. Congress (I) Monday cautioned the people that the intercenine group war within the ruling Janata Dal and the pressure tactics of its supporting parties had brought the nation “to the brink of disaster.”
Failure to resolve the Ram JanambhoomiBabri Masjid dispute and succumbing to “external pressure” on super 301,the new industrial policy and permission to Amnesty International to visit India exposed the National Front government as “weak-kneed and lacking in dignity and self-respect,” the draft political resolution, to be placed before the AICC (I), said,
In a sharp attack on the Prime Minister, V P Singh, the party said “he only watches, manipulates, deliberately promotes confusion, and resorts to the politics of managing contradictions.”
It challenged the government to immediately reveal the names of recipients of illegal payments in the Bofors gun deal or “cease forthwith its utterly dishonorable campaign of lies, innuendo and calumny.”
Article extracted from this publication >> August 3, 1990
