Oppn put pressure on Narayanan over trust motion — PM

“The President felt that he should not allow the situation to reach such a stage because he was worried about the Budget’s fate,” Vajpayee said, adding, “I told him that it was the Government’s job to manage the situation in Parliament. They (the Opposition parties) would have been exposed before the world if they had tried to stall parliamentary proceedings. We would not have faced any difficulty in getting the budget passed. It was finally passed in minutes.”

Criticising the Opposition parties forslinging mud at the BJP by citing some stray incidents in certain parts of the country, he said that instead of having a healthy debate on secularism, they were interested only in destabilising the Government.

He said that even when facts were presented before them, they were not prepared to accept them. “Is it the way politics is practised in the largest democracy of the world?” he asked.

He said toppling his Government had become a kind of political ritual for the Opposition. He was not unhappy over the fact that his Government lost by one vote, but was worried that politics had acquired a thoroughly negative and obstructionist character.

Vajpayee, in the interview, also expressed his alarm over the fact that a person of foreign origin very nearly became the country’s prime minister during its golden jubilee year. He attributed this situation to the lack of awareness in the country and to the political leaders, including himself.

“It is not just that she should not be accepted merely because shewas a person of foreign origin. Some other questions need to be answered. What is her experience? In Parliament and outside? What is her contribution in the political field? It is only a family. This is a clear case of dynastic rule,” the Prime Minister observed.