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Journalism of Courage
Rejecting Opposition demands for removal of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and imposition of President8217;s rule in Gujarat, the Centre today certified the dissolution of the Assembly as 8216;8216;politically correct8217;8217; while maintaining there had been 8216;8216;no breakdown of the constitutional machinery8217;8217; to warrant Article 356.
In a spirited defence of Modi and paying little heed to suggestions from allies not to rush with the polls and instead work on relief and rehabilitation, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, winding up a discussion on Gujarat, told the Lok Sabha: 8216;8216;You abuse a chief minister day in and day out and then expect him not to go to the people. What he has done is correct. The chief minister needs the certificate of the people of Gujarat and he will get that.8217;8217;
Snubbed by the Government when they first demanded Modi8217;s replacement, allies like the TDP, JDU and Trinamool had to suffer the ignominy all over again when none from the BJP paid any attention to their clamour for relief and rehabilitation as agenda number one.
Leaving it to the Election Commission to decide the dates of the polls, Advani assured the House that the Centre would like to see every registered voter cast his vote. He had earlier angered the Opposition by saying 8216;8216;polls reduce tension8217;8217; and that 8216;8216;if one or two incidents after the return of normalcy leads to talk of why you can8217;t hold polls, then you can8217;t hold polls anywhere in the country.8217;8217;
Opposition members, who pointed out that many people in the state did not possess identity cards or had lost them in the riots, were also not satisfied with his statement that cards would not be insisted upon if the Election Commission were unable to complete the process of issuing them.
Advani even tried to bait the Congress by making the first move on a suggestion by Samata8217;s Prabhunath Singh 8212; of all parties agreeing to impose President8217;s rule ahead of every Assembly poll if the BJP and Congress, being the largest parties on either side, were agreed on it 8212; but it was promptly rejected by Kamal Nath who said the Gujarat government must be made to go first.
Defending the dissolution, Advani said, 8216;8216;Article 174 is very clear. It is binding on the Governor to accept the recommendation for dissolution of the Assembly if it is made by a chief minister with a majority. It8217;s totally wrong and highly unfair to say two RSS pracharaks Gujarat Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari and Narendra Modi have got together and dissolved the Assembly.8217;8217;
In an attempt to deflate Opposition demands for tabling of the forensic report on the burning of the Sabarmati Express coach at Godhra, he said, 8216;8216;You don8217;t need a forensic report to tell you that it had been burnt from inside. It was very apparent to me when I went there and had a look at the coach.8217;8217;
He targeted the Opposition, especially the Congress, for describing the Gujarat riots as 8216;8216;a genocide.8217;8217;
8216;8216;I was a witness to what happened in Delhi in 1984. I will still not call it a genocide. Use of such a word sends a wrong message to the world. Ours is a secular country and will always remain one. You don8217;t have to impose secularism.8217;8217;
Earlier, the BJP let its other MPs from Gujarat do the talking for Modi. Kirit Somaiyya, who opened the BJP defence, was the only exception, but again a Gujarati from Mumbai. All took strong exception to CPM veteran Basudeb Acharia8217;s remark that 8216;8216;thousands have been raped in Gujarat,8217;8217; leading to noisy scenes and interruptions galore.
Sonia Gandhi intervened only once, rising to clarify that she had never uttered the words 8216;8216;Godse8217;s Gujarat.8217;8217;
Her partyman Kamal Nath said that Modi8217;s decision to go for early polls had more to do with 8216;8216;time catching up8217;8217; than the 8216;8216;love for going back to the people.8217;8217;
