|
Gujarat : Former President Narayanan exposes riots conspiracy |
 |
Former President K.R. Narayanan has said that the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat was the result of a conspiracy between the BJP led governments at the Centre and in the state. In an interview with a Malayalam magazine “ Manav Samskriti”, he said, then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did not do anything positive to handle the situation in Gujarat. Narayanan said, as President, he wrote several letters to Vajpayee and talked to him in detail about the riots.
Narayanan said, he asked the Army to be deployed to suppress the violence. He said the Army was sent but there was no shooting against those who engineered the violence. “ Had it been done, a lot of gruesome incidents could have been prevented”.
Narayanan also accused the NDA government of having hidden agendas. He said, “ The BJP government had several hidden agendas and education was one area where they tried to promote their ideology.
“I intervened when they came up with some names for the post of Vice Chancellors, which created bad blood in my relations with Murli Manohar Joshi and a few others”. The former President also revealed that the BJP was opposed to giving him a second term.
Reacting to Narayanan’s allegations, the BJP said that these are not based on facts. BJP Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Vijay Kumar Malhotra also questioned Narayanan’s motive in making such statements now, three years after the riots when the Commission appointed to look into the incidents would soon be submitting its report.
Asked by newspersons in New Delhi, why he did not take any concrete action during the riots, Narayanan said, that limits on his powers set by the Constitution prevented him from doing anything further. “I could not go further than the limits of the Constitution”. Narayanan further said that as President, he could only advise the Prime Minister. He had no other power, he added.
Sarvodaya leader Siddhraj Dhadda has asked former Prime Minister Vajpayee to clarify his position on the allegations made by Narayanan. He expressed surprise over Vajpayee’s refusal to react to the charges leveled by Narayanan on collusion between the Gujarat Government and the Centre in the post-Godhra violence.
|
