Mamata's friends in NDA say sorry

Mamata's friends in NDA say sorry
AJAY SURI & SANTWANA BHATTACHARYA

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 13: With the BJP's allies and the Congress refusing to play ball, the Vajpayee Government today conceded defeat by giving up the idea of imposing President's Rule in violence-hit West Bengal.

An earlier misadventure in Bihar where a similar move by the Centre had backfired weighed heavily on the NDA leaders' minds. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, the NDA restrained itself from going out of the way to help out ally Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee who is scenting power in the Left Front-ruled state which will have Assembly elections next year.

``The BJP is against imposition of Central rule in West Bengal,'' party spokesman Venkaiah Naidu said, pointing out that the NDA did not have a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha to ratify the imposition of Article 356 in the state. He also conceded in a way that there were few options left before the Centre when he said even to declare the violence-prone areas ``disturbed'' required an amendment to the statute.

Though the Centre could do little beyond making noises to placate Mamata Banerjee, given the opposition of some of the BJP's allies like the Telugu Desam Party and the MDMK to Article 356, it tried to enlist the Congress' support. But the Congress made it clear that it would not commit itself to supporting the Centre, leaving it to the Government to make the first move.

Still, Home Minister L.K.Advani met President K.R.Narayanan for 20 minutes today to apprise him of the ``fast deteriorating law and order situation in the state.'' He and Law Minister Arun Jaitley put their heads together to think of other ideas, one being to invoke Article 356 without bringing the state under President's Rule but to take over control of its law and order machinery.

Jaitley told The Indian Express that under one of the provisions of Article 356, it was possible to bring law and order under direct control of the Centre without otherwise bringing the the state under President's Rule as is normally done. ``But this sort of thing has never been tried earlier,'' he was quick to add.

Only last week, Defence Minister George Fernandes was deputed by the NDA to visit the trouble-torn districts of West Bengal after which he submitted a report to Advani recommending imposition of Article 356. But today, another report by an NDA fact-finding team led by TDP MP S.Venugopalachari which visited those areas on August 12 and 13 came in handy for the Centre to undo Fernandes' recommendation.

The finishing touches to Venugopalachari's report were given only yesterday. And he was specially flown in from Hyderabad to release the report which recommends that ``the district of Midnapore should be declared as a disturbed area as there is a total failure of law and order.'' This report was apparently withheld all this while due to lack of consensus among the members of the team.

Venugopalachari and C. Krishnan of the MDMK put their foot down on the idea of Article 356 while the others, Prabhunath Singh (Samata Party) Suresh Ramrao Jadhav (Shiv Sena), Sanjay Paswan (BJP) and Sudip Bandyopadhyay (Trinamool Congress) were bent on Central rule.

Venkaiah Naidu, while making it clear that the BJP was against Article 356, suggested that the Left Front Government should invite an all-party delegation to the affected areas in West Bengal.

And as for the Congress, its West Bengal unit chief Pranab Mukherjee indicated here today that his party remained non-committal on the steps to be taken to improve the ``deteriorating law and order situation'' in certain parts of the state. He said it was for the Government to decide about the steps to be taken to restore normalcy in the affected areas.

About the recommendation of an NDA parliamentary delegation to declare the violence-hit areas ``disurbed'' and deploy Central forces to help the weaker sections, Mukherjee said that under the law it could not be done as the Disturbed Areas Act was applicable only in areas close to the international border.