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BJP trying to drag President's office into controversy: Laloo

Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav today charged the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre with trying to drag the President's office into a controversy by threatening to dismiss the democratically-elected goverment in Bihar.

''Under which Constitutional provision can President's rule be imposed in the state?'' he asked.

''If Article 356 was applicable to Bihar, why can't it be applied in other states where the BJP was in power,'' the former Bihar chief minister said in New Delhi. Laloo Yadav had arrived in the capital from Bombay, where he had been to address a Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha rally.

The RJD chief said the Centre was trying to derive political mileage by issuing threats to the Rabri Devi government, ignoring the sufferings of millions of flood-affected victims in Bihar.

Referring to the recent visit of a central team to the flood-affected areas of Bihar, he said the team had gone to the state for ''political purposes'' and not for assessing the losses caused by floods.

He said no central assistance for flood relief has been received by the state so far. While the prime minister preferred to visit flood-affected areas in Uttar Pradesh where its party was in power, he did not care about the miseries of the flood victims in Bihar.

The statement came a day after the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha rally in Bombay on Sunday, where the Morcha pledged to oust the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre terming it as ''anti-people''. The BJP-led government is interested only in dismissing Opposition-ruled state governments including Bihar and has been ignoring important national issues like implementation of the Justice B N Srikrishna Commission report.

It was the Morcha's first rally at the historic Shivaji Park in central Bombay and its fourth in the series after the Morcha's formation.

Addressing the rally, RLM leaders -- former defence minister and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Yadav -- said the BJP-led government has failed on all fronts and was diverting the attention of the people by highlighting communal issues.

The two leaders made it clear that the party is firm on its demand of arrest Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who has been indicted by the Srikrishna Commission for his role in the December 1992-January 1993 riots.

They said that any attempts to dislodge the Rabri Devi government would not be tolerated.

Both the leaders said it is time for the Congress to come out and make attempts to form a government at the Centre and fight communal forces. They regretted that the Congress has not accepted the front's proposal which they said is emerging as the third force in the country after the Congress and the BJP.

Mulayam Singh also urged his party MLAs and MLCs in Maharashtra to reconsider their decision to resign en masse if the Srikrishna report not implemented by October 2.

He told his partymen that ''resignation would amount to cowardice. You are the elected representatives of the people and had no right to resign without the consent of those who elected you. You should not resign but seek their (the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra) resignation.''

UNI

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