With Babri reminder, PM brings BJP notch down its moral perch

After six weeks of Opposition pressure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today chose his first press conference abroad to politely counter the ...

After six weeks of Opposition pressure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today chose his first press conference abroad to politely counter the NDA charges in the ‘tainted’ ministers controversy which has virtually paralysed Parliament.

While asserting that he was looking to formulate a code of conduct on what constituted a crime and who was a criminal, the PM took on the BJP leadership for their role in the Babri Masjid demolition.

‘‘If you lead a large mob of people and try to get away, it is not a political crime. If you incite a mob and this results in the death of hundreds of people and say it is not a political crime, it is a sad reflection on the state of Indian politics,’’ he told reporters after the BIMSTEC summit here.

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The PM added that he ‘‘begged to disagree’’ on the distinction the BJP was trying to make between a political crime and non-political one.

The Prime Minister said that given the mandate of the people, the formation of government with constituents such as the RJD was the ‘‘only feasible course of action for him.’’ Otherwise, it would have meant that the BJP would return to power without an electoral victory, he pointed out.

The Prime Minister also revealed that ‘‘some progress’’ has been made on suggestions submitted by the Chief Election Commissioner, T S Krishnamurthy, on cleansing the poll process, which was first reported in The Indian Express.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

Nizamuddin went to the US in December 2015 for a Master’s course in Computer Science, which he completed from Florida Institute of Technology in 2017. He completed his B.Tech in ECE from Jayaprakash Narayan College of Engineering, Mahbubnagar.

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