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Second JD team asks President to sack Rabri

The Janata Dal today dissociated itself from the decision of some Opposition parties to observe Friday as all-India protest day against the Union Cabinet's recommendation to dismiss the Rabri Devi government.

In a statement, Dal president Sharad Yadav said the party was not consulted when the parties decided to call a national strike. "Therefore the question of supporting the call does not arise."

Meanwhile, Janata Dal Parliamentary Board chairman Ram Vilas Paswan today met President K R Narayanan and urged him to accept the advice to dismiss Rabri Devi.

Paswan led a delegation which included Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren and Rashtriya Janata Party leader Anand Mohan Singh, MP.

Paswan later told reporters that the delegation apprised the President of the deteriorating law-and-order situation in Bihar and the unabated atrocities on Dalits and women. They requested him to consult leaders of different political parties from the state to get first-hand knowledge of the situation there.

Paswan's meeting with the President is significant because another Janata Dal delegation led by former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral had called on Narayanan yesterday for just the opposite purpose -- to urge him not to concede the "mala fide and unconstitutional" recommendation of the Union Cabinet.

Asked about that panel which included S R Bommai, S Jaipal Reddy, and Surendra Mohan, Paswan said, ''These leaders have no base and they are parasites."

Paswan also said that though former prime minister H D Deve Gowda did not come with them, ''he is fully with us".

UNI

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