BJP blasts Congress for politicising statue desecration issue

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday lambasted the Congress for ''politicising'' the situation arising out of Friday's incident of the desecration of Dr B R Ambedkar's statue in Bombay.

Strongly denouncing the Congress demand for imposition of President's rule in Maharashtra, the BJP parliamentary party observed that the Congress was indulging in double standards.

It said the Shiv Sena-BJP government had conceded all the three demands of the Congress party -- a judicial inquiry into the incident, an inquiry by a sitting high court judge, and a time-bound inquiry.

BJP spokesman Jaswant Singh said this was the first incident of violence since the Shiv Sena-BJP took charge in Maharashtra in March 1995, and the Congress was trying to make political mileage out of it. On the other hand, it had not yet said anything about Bihar where the law and order machinery had collapsed.

Party general secretary Pramod Mahajan gave a detailed account of the situation in Maharashtra following Friday's incident to the BJP parliamentary party which was presided over by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Jaswant Singh said the meeting disapproved the violence that erupted after the unfortunate desecration of the Ambedkar statue in which some hooligans ransacked the houses of prominent Opposition leaders. It was a deliberate and wanton act, he said.

Some arrests had already been made and more arrests were likely, he said, and asserted that the state government would take strict action against such anti-social elements.

Regarding the Congress decision not to participate in Tuesday's confidence vote to be sought by Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, Singh said it was the Congress party's gameplan to ''destroy the United Front in Delhi and replace it by a Congress-led front to rule the country."

He said the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's decision to pull out from the Gujral government was not simply the beginning of the end of the United Front, but it had already reached the middle of the end.

Singh said DMK leader M Karunanidhi's charges -- that the UF had abandoned its common minimum programme and some of its constituents are pursuing their own programmes, and that some constituents are furthering the policy of political suicide --- against the UF government were very serious.

UNI