Congress cautions NDA secularists’

Addressing a news conference here, Scindia said many of the electoral allies of the BJP are secular and vehemently opposed to the communal agenda of the ruling party. They should now introspect and redefine their political strategies in the wake of sangh parivar unwilling to give up the contentious divisive issues, he said.

The Congress leader expressed confidence that such opportunistic alliances with the main party putting on hold its main thrust issuesand teaming up with parties whose ideologies were contrary would not last long.

Scindia said the Congress has difficulty in implementing the electoral engineering’ that the BJP had deployed since the party, unlike the BJP, has presence all over the country.

He, however, clarified that the Congress was not opposed to coalition politics and the Panchmarhi declaration was often misquoted to give an impression that the party believed in a single party rule at the Centre. Citing an instance, he said the Congress entered into a coalition with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra as the mandate was clearly in favour of secular parties.

However, Scindia evaded a direct reply whether the central leadership of the party favoured change of guard in Orissa saying at the moment its priority was to provide relief to the cyclone affected people in the State.

He urged the Union government to declare the Orissa super cyclone as a national calamity.

, the Congress leader said the Tenth Financecommission has clearly provided for such an eventuality. “We are not talking in the air when we make this demand,” he said. Out of Rs 650 crore released by the Centre for relief operations in the State only Rs 200 crore was grant and the rest had to be adjusted against plan advance or ways and means advanced. To top it all the State Government has to pay an interest of nine per cent and the loan amount need to be repaid in the next four months, he said.

About the banner of revolt raised by dissident leader Subhas Yadav, Scindia said the issues raised by him related to the Centre especially regarding excessive import of wheat and sugar which has damaged the interest of farmers. On Yadav’s demand for ouster of Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, he parried the question saying it has to be addressed to Pranab Mukherjee who is in charge of Madhya Pradesh.

Scindia defended the decision of the Congress leadership to depute Kamal Nath to the WTO ministerial conference saying he had experience and expertise indealing with the subject. He had played a major role in the Earth Summit which dealt with environmental issues likely to figure in a major way at the Seattle conference.

He said the Congress would take up the issue of inclusion of late Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors chargesheet both inside and outside Parliament since on the contention that prima facie case against him was yet to be established. He, however, made it clear that unlike the BJP the party has no plans to stall parliamentary proceedings. The party was planning a big rally on this issue when the winter session of Parliament begins on Monday.

The Congress would support the Insurance Bill to open up this sector to private companies provided the General Insurance Corporation and the Life Insurance Corporation were strengthened and the funds secured through 26 per cent dilution in government stakes was used in building up infrastructure.