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Centre is evaluating Bihar situation afresh, says Venkaiah Naidu

Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu has said the Centre is evaluating the situation in Bihar in the context of the latest censure of the Rabri Devi government by the Patna high court and asserted that Bihar is a fit "textbook case for imposition of Article 356 of the Constitution".

Addressing the media in Madras, he said the BJP was of the view that the people of Bihar should be saved from further catastrophe. But it was left to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to follow the right methodology for this, he added.

It was the party's view that the presidency should be kept above politics, he said.

Naidu, however, declined to say whether the government would again recommend to the President to impose Article 356 in Bihar.

Listing out the 'jungle raj' in Bihar, he said 84 civil servants in Bihar had either been missing or eliminated, 17 key witnesses in the fodder scam case in which Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav is the key accused had been missing or eliminated, seven zones had been declared liberated by extremists and there was no law and order in that state.

Chief Minister Rabri Devi herself was only nominally in control of the state and the police were refusing to register cases, he alleged.

Former Union minister and Communist Party of India leader Chaturanan Mishra himself had now openly demanded imposition of President's rule in Bihar. Senior Congress leaders S S Ahluwalia and Rajesh Pilot had said that the Congress should not be seen as supporting the Bihar government, he pointed out.

UNI

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