Front prefers going out to giving in

Gujral is expected to write to Congress President Sitaram Kesri that the UF saw nothing in the Jain Commission report to justify the accusations against the DMK. The Prime Minister is leaving for Calcutta tomorrow.

The decision to reject the Congress demand was near unanimous with only Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav making an ineffectual attempt at protest.

In a bid to assuage the feelings of the SP supremo, who has been nursing a grievance against the Gujral Government for allowing BJP leader Kalyan Singh to continue as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the core committee decided to seek Attorney General Ashok Desai’s views on the law and order situation in the state.

This was in response to the Union Defence Minister’s allegations that his partymen and relatives were being targeted by the BJP Government.

UnitedF ront spokesman S Jaipal Reddy told reporters after the core committee meeting in the evening that the Congress demand for the DMK’s ouster from the government was “totally unjustified.” He said the Congress should have read the Jain Commission report carefully before making the demand. “It is unfortunate that the Congress has raised the bogey of the DMK while remaining oblivious to the threat of communalism,” he said.Meanwhile, the four Left parties — CPI(M), CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc — made it clear that there was no question of kowtowing to the Congress’ demands. The Jain Commission, they said, had not found any evidence to involve the DMK in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. They dubbed the Congress’ move “politically motivated” to help the BJP. The people will see through the game being played by the Congress, they added.

They also condemned attempts by the Congress to prevent a discussion on the Jain Commission report. The UF, which made it clear that it had made up its mind against opting for the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, was preparing for a showdown with the Congress in Parliament. “We want to expose the Congress either during the debate on the Jain Commission report or during the one on the confidence vote,” said a UF leader.

All the same, the UF already appeared to be in election mode with the core committee resolving to observe December 6 as `National Unity and Communal Harmony Day’ in all state capitals. The UF also hopes to target the Congress for trying to divert the attention of the people from the BJP’s misdeeds in Uttar Pradesh through the Jain Commission report.

Meanwhile, the DMK vowed to fight the “conspiracy” to implicate it in the Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case for reaping “political advantage”.

Party supremo M Karunanidhi described the charges against the DMK as “cheap statecraft” and said the practice of such politics was “not civilized behaviour.”

Denying the charge that the DMK had a nexus with the LTTE, he said his party had only carried out the policy of the Central Government at that time. Noting that the Commission had probed the growth of militancy in the state through one decade until 1991, he pointed out that the DMK had been in power for just two years during the period.

The LTTE, Karunanidhi alleged, was supplied arms, provided with training camps and given funds by the Centre as also by the state government headed by M G Ramachandran.

It was not just the Rajiv and V P Singh Governments that had followed a similar policy towards the Tamil problem in the island nation, he said, adding the Chandrashekhar Government had also directed TN government to keep Tamil militants in separate camps.