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Congress team to meet PM to demand Maharashtra govt's resignation

The Congress Working Committee has decided to meet Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over its demand that stringent action be taken against the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra and Sena supremo Bal Thackeray following the observations made by the Srikrishna Commission against them. The Commission had probed the 1992-93 Bombay riots.

According to senior party leader Sharad Pawar, the party would ask Vajpayee to dismiss the Maharashtra government for rejecting the Commission's findings and demand stringent action against Thackeray for his inflammatory role during the riots.

The CWC meeting, held at the week-end, is also understood to have taken a dim view of the then Congress state government headed by Sudhakarrao Naik for its failure to check the riots. Pawar, as it is well known, had a running battle with Naik during that period, which was referred to by the Commission in its <06sri1.htm>report.

The Congress leadership's primary aim is to extract as much political capital from the Srikrishna report as possible in order to further embarrass the BJP-led ruling coalition at the Centre.

In this context, the presence of Pawar in the Congress delegation meeting the prime minister is being keenly watched in political circles. For, Congress president Sonia has reportedly not forgiven him for his indiscretion in stating that the Congress did not want to pull down the ruling coalition at the Centre at this juncture.

One senior Congress leader pointed out Sonia had got yet another opportunity to embarrass the Maratha strongman. But the leader refuses to elaborate.

The BJP expectedly backed Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi's rejection of the Srikrishna report.

BJP spokesman Venkaiah Naidu told Rediff On The Net that -- although he was yet to go through the report -- he had information that the Commission had "selectively" taken cognizance of those who had a role in the 1992-93 riots, leaving others scot-free. He said he would comment on the report after going through it.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu too criticised the Maharashtra government for rejecting the Commission's report. Senior Janata Dal leader Ram Vilas Paswan demanded the Maharasthra government's dismissal.

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