Oppn flays Vajpayee attending VHP meet

He asserted that after this there should be no illusions on the hidden and real agenda that Vajpayee represents and espouses since the VHP represents obscurantism, fundamentalism and communalism at its worst.

Calling the Prime Minister’s participation in the VHP meet “disturbing”, NCP spokesperson Devindranath Dwivedi said today that Vajpayee’s statement of “making the India of our dreams once BJP gets a two-thirds majority” brought into sharp relief the BJP’s commitment to three kinds of agenda, the NDA agenda, the hidden agenda and the deferred agenda.

“The Prime Minister’s participation in the meeting therefore is an act of impropriety and his speech is a clear case of indiscretion…Vajpayee has a right to a Swayam Seva of the RSS and he also has the right to be the nation’s chosen Prime Minister but he does not have the right to be India’s Prime Minister and also be a serving RSS Swayam Sevak,” Dwivedi asserted.

Natwar Singh felt that the Prime Minister should have talked to Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf instead of consciously avoiding him. “He (Vajpayee) should have told him on his face to stop cross border terrorism. After all terrorism emanates from Pakistan and therefore it is essential to talk to the country’s head of state whoever he may be,” he said.

“If we are trying to avoid him because of terrorism, we should not have talked to Nawaz Sharif who also encouraged terrorism,” he said, adding that the Congress has always wanted that the diplomatic door should not be closed with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the Left Parties also deplored Vajpayee’s statement in support of the pro-Hinduvata forces at a VHP-organised event near New York.

While the CPI-M Politburo said it exposed the BJP-led government true colours and the `hidden agenda’ that they have been pursuing all along; the CPI Central secretariat condemned the PM for attending the VHP meeting and openly catering to their exclusivist agenda.

“Vajpayee was in the US as Prime Minister of India on an official visit and not as a `swayamsevak‘. His pronouncements echoing the Hindutva philosophy at Staten Island went against the secular-democratic character of the state and the Constitution,” the CPI leaders said.

It is of serious concern to all democratic-minded people, the manner in which the VHP is being promoted by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government — first by allowing them to participate in the United Nations summit and then endorsement given to them by the Prime Minister on a “communal platform”, the Left Parties said.

The Left Parties demanded that the Prime Minister better make the real intentions of the BJP clear on his return.“He owes an explanation to the other allies of NDA as well the Opposition and to the country at large,” the CPI leaders said.