ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Congress to launch countrywide agitation on Srikrishna report

Tara Shankar Sahayin New Delhi

The Congress today decided to launch a countrywide agitation over the Srikrishna Commission report and underscored that it would continue till the central government fulfilled its constitutional obligation.

Addressing a well-attended press conference, senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad pointed out that the agitation was being launched to force the Maharashtra government to initiate action against those who had been adversely named in the report which probed the Bombay riots of 1992-93.

Deploring the inaction on the prime minister's part despite a Congress delegation pointing out his constitutional obligations in the matter, Azad said this only showed that the saffron forces were unmindful of the country's constitutional obligations.

The senior party leader said the rejection of the Srikrishna report by Chief Minister Manohar Joshi clearly showed his government's contempt for constitutional and democratic procedures.

Listing the Congress's actions since the report was tabled in the Maharashtra assembly, Azad recalled that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had summoned a meeting of the Congress Working Committee to discuss the report immediately. Subsequently, she constituted a five-member committee to study and evaluate the report, which has made short and long-term recommendations regarding. However, the central government was being callous, and Union Home Minister L K Advani, instead of condemning the rejection of the report by the Maharashtra government, had said it had done nothing wrong, Azad alleged, adding that this was why his party leadership had decided to launch the agitation.

According to him, the planned agitation will include the setting up of action committees at the district and state levels, and press statements and conferences by the PCC leadership to appraise the people of the unconstitutional stance of the saffron forces.

Tell us what you think of this report