Sangma brings foreign issue to fore

The NCRWC has been known to be sharply divided on the question though it has not yet taken it up formally for discussion. The issue has not figured in any way at any of the five meetings the Commission has held since its inception 11 months ago, nor has it assigned any think tank or acedemic to prepare a discussion paper on the subject which then can be released for a public debate, before the Commission takes a final position on it.

At its first meeting itself, the Commission had zeroed in on ten subjects, assigning various agencies to prepare discussion papers on them. They included strengthening institutions of parliamentary democracy with an emphasis on political stability, electoral reforms, Union-state relations, decentralisation and devolution, and enlargement of fundamental rights. The Commission released seven discussion papers last week.

The Commission’s one-year-term comes to an end on February 21.

Sangma, who had parted company with Sonia Gandhi on the issue that she could not become the Prime Minister, had submitted a formal paper on the foreign origin issue to the Commission last year itself and it is now before the NCRWC. He said that he had spoken to the NCRWC Chairman recently and M.N. Venkatachaliah had assured Sangma that the matter would be taken up soon.

However, this might not happen at the next meeting of the Commission slated for January 31 because Sangma is going to be away attending the Working Committee of the NCP, to which he belongs, in Guwahati on that day.

Even if the Commission were to vote out the idea, he would take it up in Parliament, Sangma said. If nothing else, he would bring a private member’s Bill and force voting on the issue. The issue, he said, had a bearing on the national pride, identity, the country’s security and its intelligence system.

Such a provision had existed in countries like Italy, USA, and Germany but other nations like Finland and Zimbabwe had included it in their Constitutions in the past six months.

Even as Sangma raked up the issue again, Sonia Gandhi was the butt of attack by the BJP also. Stung by her words on the review of the Constitution at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Election Commission on Wednesday, the BJP mounted a sharp attack on the Leader of the Opposition. BJP vice-president Jana Krishnamurthy challenged Sonia Gandhi to cite one instance from the past 50 years when any party other than the Congress or any leader other than Indira Gandhi had tried to undermine the Constitution.

Krishnamurthy was reacting to Sonia’s swipe against the BJP and the Sangh family on Wednesday when she said that the real danger to Indian democracy came “from within”, from those who are “uncomfortable with our Constitution”, who “claim to speak on behalf of our culture but who distort the essence and meaning of that culture”.