Search the Internet          Tips

Gujarat: Sonia criticises Vajpayee's double speak

Participating in a discussion in Lok Sabha on the censure motion on the Gujarat issue, the leader of the opposition also sought appointment of a sitting Supreme Court to probe the causes of the continuing violence.

In a hard-hitting speech in which she attacked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Gandhi wanted all recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission to be implemented and bringing to book all guilty immediately by initiating firm law and order measures and providing full relief and rehabilitation to all those affected by the riots.

Gandhi bluntly told the government that until and unless these steps were taken, her party would continue to agitate against the 'insidious' agenda of the BJP and the grave threat it poses to the nation.

"While the state government betrayed the people of Gujarat, the Centre failed the people of India," she said adding the state government 'aided and abetted by their patrons in Delhi grievously wounded the soul of Gujarat'.

The Congress president said the directive to the Gujarat government should be given under Article 355 of the Constitution as it had failed to control the situation.

Singling out Vajpayee for attack, she said he was indulging in double-speak by 'shifting' his statements on the Gujarat issue and cited what he had spoken in Gujarat and later in Goa.

When the Prime Minister himself speaks in this manner, what can the nation expect of this government, she asked.

She strongly refuted BJP charges that the opposition had failed to condemn the barbaric Godhra incident in time.

"I was the first one to condemn it in the strongest possible terms," she said.

She took strong exception to Vajpayee's recent remark that the incidents in Gujarat could have been pre-empted had Parliament strongly condemned the Godhra killings.

"What prevented the prime minister as leader of the House to take the lead in this matter?" she asked. "He is projecting his failure as Parliament's dereliction," she added.

Gandhi accused the BJP-led coalition of being a 'passive spectator' to the actions of a 'blatantly partisan' chief minister who has besmirched the fair name of Gujarat.

She said the clinching evidence of the 'partisan policies' adopted by the state government was the large-scale transfers of senior civil and police officials who did their constitutional duty in professional and impartial way.

The Congress president said the incidents in Gujarat did not spread elsewhere as an 'overwhelming number of people' are secular and they rejected the politics of hate and communal divide.

Sonia Gandhi said it was still not too late to mount a national effort to salvage the situation.

The Sabarmati in Flames: Complete Coverage

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report