Cong slams ATR8217;s bias

Also, the Congress is angry that the ATR ignores several recommendations of the Jain Commission8217;s final report and is silent on the 21 suspects held guilty by a local court and other such suggestions by Justice Jain. In addition, the Congress hasrejected the concept of a Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency MDMA to conduct further probe into some areas of the Rajiv assassination case. The Congress feels that some sort of a judicial commission would be a better way to deal with unfinished aspects of the Rajiv case.

Meanwhile, the issue continued to rock Tamil Nadu too with Karunanidhi accusing the Centre of quot;fraudulent manipulationquot; in clubbing his name with 21 suspects in the assassination conspiracy, and AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha stressing that Karunanidhi step down and allow an quot;impartial inquiryquot;.

Both leaders kept up their distrust of each other with Karunanidhi charging the Vajpayee government with committing quot;wanton mischiefquot; to malign him and the DMK under quot;pressurequot; from Jayalalitha and she defending the concept of an MDMA against Karunanidhi.

In Delhi, the exercise of formulating a line on the Jain Commission8217;s report has kept the Congress busy for a long time and today8217;s CWC meeting was no exception. Most of the CWC members werepresent barring Sharad Pawar and A K Antony and the Congress leadership went through a subtle exercise of blending emotions and sentiments with real politik.

The result: a stance which can be interpreted in any manner. For example, the CWC stuck to the Congress8217; earlier stance of not seeking dismissal of the Karunanidhi government in Tamil Nadu. Even while pulling the Gujral government down, the Congress hadn8217;t talked of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu and this stands currently too.

That keeps the DMK and other constituents of the United Front happy as they are potential allies of the Congress should a situation arise involving the formation of an alternative government at the Centre. Then, the CWC talked of the ATR8217;s quot;politically motivated areasquot; hinting at Subramanian Swamy8217;s being clubbed with others like Chandraswamy.

This is a feeler to Jayalalitha whose ally Swamy is at the moment. Finally, when the CWC says it quot;acceptsquot; the Commission8217;s final report in toto, it is satisfying its own seriousnesson the issue.

Justice Jain has made several suggestions in his report including the one on Karunanidhi8217;s links with the LTTE which the Congress agrees with.

A clearer picture of what the Congress actually feels on many points in the controversy could be cleared in the parliementary debate on the matter. Though party president Sonia Gandhi is expected to clear the names of people who will speak from the Congress side tomorrow morning, indications are that P Shiv Shanker, Rajesh Pilot, Ajit Jogi and Natwar Singh might be fielded in the Lok Sabha and Kapil Sibal, Pranab Mukherjee, Manmohan Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Rajya Sabha.

But the problem of dealing with the Jain Commission report will haunt the Congress for some time to come. As CWC member Arjun Singh said quot;there is a slight delicacy involvedquot; in the whole thing.

The CWC also discussed four other issues: the July 28 rally which Sonia said was a huge success, the Deputy Speaker8217;s election in the Lok Sabha on which the Bharatiya Janata Partywas attacked for not agreeing to P.M. Sayeed8217;s candidature, the Karunakaran Committee report on the Congress Constitution which recommends extension of office-bearer8217;s terms by a year to three years and the problems of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees in the country.