New Delhi, December 14
The top central leadership is highly perturbed that the Congress and some other opposition parties and groups in Parliament have been highly partisan in their approach to the Vajpayee government’s “do or die” battle against terrorism.
What has caused extreme bitterness in the BJP-led NDA is the Opposition’s stand of steering clear from giving Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee a carte blanche in meeting the challenge of terrorism, especially in the wake of yesterday’s suicide squad attack on Parliament and the country’s democratic system.
Considering the enormity of what is viewed in the government as the “failed attack” by the Pakistan-backed terrorists, it was generally believed in the ruling party circles that partisanship will give way to all sections of Parliament uniting behind Mr Vajpayee. But that was not to be.
BJP leaders were flummoxed with the opposition parties refusing to strengthen the Prime Minister’s hands in this hour of crisis. They had treasured the fond hope that Mr Vajpayee will receive the same unreserved support as in the USA when President George Bush was backed to the hilt by the Congress in the aftermath of the terrorist strikes on September 11.
Short of spitting venom against the Opposition, several senior ministers and aides of the Prime Minister took exception to the resolution adopted by the Congress Working Committee at its meeting here yesterday which focussed on the serious breach of security and squarely blamed the government for the attack on Parliament.
The accentuating divide between the Vajpayee government’s assertion that the battle against terrorism “is in its last stages” and the strategy of the Congress, Left and other opposition parties came into the open at the all-party meeting specially convened by Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi here this morning.
The Vajpayee government’s effort to present a united political entity in Parliament irrespective of their ideologies in crushing terrorism, in both Houses of Parliament came a cropper.
Given the high strung mood of the Opposition to lambast the government for the terrorist attack despite adequate warning from the Maharashtra Government and other sources, the government’s busybodies decided to drop the idea of affording time to the leaders of all political parties and groups in Parliament to speak against this problem.
Clearly, the government did not want the Opposition parties to gain political mileage from training its guns against Mr Vajpayee and the Union Home Minister L.K. Advani. Already the government was under intense pressure, thanks to the alleged coffins scam pertaining to the Kargil martyrs and the Bill to replace the controversial POTO.
