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Scindia promises to have Pawar on the mat

Michael Gonsalves in Pune

True to the tradition of all politicians, All-India Congress Committee general secretary Madhavrao Scindia is confident of victory.

He is certain his men will have ex-colleague Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party on the mat in Maharashtra in the forthcoming general election.

"We are confident that we will do better than the NCP in the Lok Sabha election," said an upbeat Scindia, on an election tour of western Maharashtra. The Congress might not retain all the 33 seats won last time around, true, but a victory is definitely in the offing, he added.

His reading after visiting Kolhapur and Sangli, he claimed, was that voters are still one with the Congress: "There is a steady boost to the Congress party in western Maharashtra, the bastion of Pawar."

Pawar, of course, the Congress politician agreed, has a base in Maharashtra. But he drew his strength from the Congress, and despite him deserting, the party's rank and file in the state is intact.

Scindia, the Maratha prince of Gwalior whose ancestors hailed from Satara district of western Maharashtra, has been entrusted with the job of negating Pawar in his own stronghold.

He made it clear that the Kargil crisis, political instability, criminal extortion, gang warfare and the failure of the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra would all figure as Congress poll planks in the state.

He spoke about Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 'inadequacies' in handling the Kargil conflict. Vajpayee, he said, should come clean on when he was informed about the Pakistani infiltration plan.

"We have learnt that the prime minister was told as early as February. But Vajpayee turned a Nelson's eye to the information, as ordering the army to take action would have undermined the euphoria generated by his historic Lahore bus diplomacy," he alleged.

"Immediate action would have saved the precious lives of soldiers and officers," he added.

Referring to the statement by Vajpayee's security adviser Brajesh Mishra that the country was "fooled", Scindia said it exposed the inexperience and immaturity of the people running the government.

"How can one believe that a mere bus tour to Lahore will resolve all the differences between India and Pakistan," he asked.

Scindia said the Congress demand for a Rajya Sabha session on Kargil was not to criticise the government but to offer constructive solutions. But by ignoring it, Vajpayee had strangled the best democratic traditions of the country.

During the 1962 war with China, Scindia went on, Vajpayee had demanded a special Lok Sabha session to discuss the situation. That demand was conceded within a week by the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

But when his own turn came, Vajpayee shied away from a session fearing that many skeletons would tumble out of his cupboard, the Congressman said.

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