It is truly a delight to be back in these beautiful islands after a gap of many years. I wish I could have stayed longer. Short though my stay is here, I have enjoyed every moment of it. I hope I will soon have the opportunity of coming back for a longer sojourn.

The impressive presence among us of the Congress Chief Ministers is both a tribute to our longest-serving Member of Parliament and now Deputy Speaker, Mr. P.M. Sayeed Sahib, as it is proof of the Congress Party's unswerving concern for all parts of our country, however remote, however distant.

After his election as Deputy Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had of meeting him on the soil of his constituency which has set a historical record by returning him ten times in succession to the Lok Sabha. Rarely, perhaps never before in world parliament history, has a representative been elected and re-elected so many times without fail. Of course, I congratulate the Hon'ble Deputy Speaker but would also like to extend my congratulations to the people of Lakshadweep for having consistently voted for a candidate who has transformed the economic face of this island while preserving the culture and way of life of its people.

The economic transformation has been remarkable. Where the literacy rate was a mere 26% in the year Sayeed Sahib was first elected, it has how soared to 98%. This Union Territory boasts a Navodaya Vidyalaya, two senior secondary level schools and two junior colleges. And thanks to the Hon'ble Deputy Speaker's munificence under the MPLAD scheme, every high school in Lakshadweep is equipped with a computer. Next only to education, the key human development indicator is health. During Sayeed Sahib's stewardship of Lakshadweep, two hospitals and three community health centres have been established.

In an archipelago like Lakshadweep, distant from the mainland by several hundred kilometres, the key to development is transport and communications. Thanks to the energy and dynamism of your long-serving MP, Lakshadweep is now well connected to the mainland both by sea and air, the airport at Agatti having been completed in a record time of 11 months. Perhaps even more important than transport links to the mainland is inter-island transport. You now have two high speed vessels for transporting people and four barges for transporting cargo. Moreover, sea journeys in private vessels for fishing or travel have become much safer since the supply of no less than 68 VHP sets under the MPLAD schemes. Every village is electrified and all islands are connected to each other and the mainland by telephone. All this has been made possible by our outstanding parliamentarian, Mr. P.M. Sayeed.

Lying at the root of the spurt in the development process in these islands are two significant initiatives taken by Rajivji. The first was the Island Development Authority. The second was Panchayati Raj. Rajivji personally emphasized the importance of the Island Development Authority when he convened its annual meeting in Lakshadweep in 1998. This followed the initial meeting of the IDA in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands the previous year. The idea was to familiarize top decision-makers in Delhi with ground realities in these distant parts of the country so that familiarity with the islands informs decision-making about their future. Thus with one decisive stroke, Rajivji ended the glorious isolation in which decision-makers took decisions about these regions knowing little or nothing about them. The tragedy is that after the termination of Rajivji's period as Prime Minister, the IDA has not only receded into the background but the living link between the IDA and the people of the islands has been virtually snapped. Whenever the Congress returns to office at the centre, we pledge to resume the practice of holding IDA meetings in the islands.

The other decisive initiative was Panchayati Raj. This initiative was, of course, not Lakshadweep-specific but it is a matter of immense satisfaction that these islands have taken to the institutions of panchayati raj with such enthusiasm. The time has now come to extend self-governance beyond the different units of panchayati raj to cover the Union Territory as a whole. I refer to our manifesto pledge to provide a mini-assembly for Lakshadweep. The subject has been activated in Parliament and the Congress will make its full contribution to the fulfilment of its pledge.

Let me now turn to some of the larger issues concerning the country as a whole. The essence of the Congress party's conception of the nationhood of India is the celebration of our diversity. We rejoice in the multiple ethinicites which so characterize our nation. Through thousands of years of history, we have set an example to the world of unity in many cultures of India and all the many ways of life of our people. The culture and faith of the people of Lakshadweep is an integral part of the composite culture of India. Our civilizational genius over centuries has been to preserve the individuality of each piece of the Indian mosaic while putting the mosaic together with affection and devotion. We were somewhat concerned that the development process in Lakshadweep might disrupt your traditional way of life. But notwithstanding virtually cent per cent literacy, widespread girls education, the opening up of the islands to tourism, including foreign tourists, and the progressive integration of your economy with the economy of the mainland and, indeed, the global economy, Lakshadweep remains a crime-free society, with none of the social evils which one finds elsewhere in the country. India is proud that Islam which came to the island of Amini with Hazrat Obaidullah remains a Muslim stronghold. These islands are a symbol of our secularism.

Unfortunately, ever since the advent of the BJP-led government at the Centre, secularism has been under assault. The coalition nature of the Union Government obliges them to resort to a vocabulary of secularism borrowed from the Congress tradition. But it is impossible to believe that leaders who have devoted half a century of their lives to propagating the exact opposite ideology of the RSS suddenly become secular on entering the portals of governance. That is precisely why the government is so slow to react when outrages are perpetrated on our minorities. Again and again, the Sangh parivar pushes its agenda forward and the Union Government acquiesces until forced to backtrack in the face of our relentless opposition. Let none of us be fooled into imagining that the BJP leopard is changing its spots or the Sangh parivar tiger is changing its stripes. For all its pretensions to cultivating the minorities and putting behind it its communal past, the fact remains that the well-springs of the BJP ideology lie in the mindset bequeathed them by Hedgewar and Golwalkar. That is a communal mindset - and we must not forget it nor be misled into thinking those ideas are no longer on the BJP's agenda.

We in the Congress party are also deeply disturbed at what is happening to the economy. This government which talks of transparency indulges in the exact opposite when dealing, for instance, with disinvestment. Cronyism is their motto, their credo. The economy is on a downslide with virtually every sector in a mess and no imagination or vision on display to reverse the declining trends.

The poorest of the poor are burdened with a doubling of food prices when FCI godowns are so full that the government cannot find outlets for the grain it has procured. This is bad economics; it is worse ethics. This is a government without compassion, this is a government without a heart. It is a government which has forgotten the worship of Daridranarayana, it has forgotten the concept of concern for the poorest of the poor, the single most important lesson in economics taught us by Mahatma Gandhi.

Whether it is in respect of foodgrains or oilseeds or tea or coffee or rubber or coconuts, the farmer everywhere in India is suffering. The sharp cut-back in public investment in irrigation and agriculture has had a disastrous impact on the rural economy and its prospects for growth. Mindless imports, with very poor use of protective tariff mechanisms, are endangering the Green Revolution and the diversification of the agriculture economy. The backbone of our economy is our kisan. If he suffers, how can the country prosper?

In foreign policy, we are abandoning our independence of thought and action. How far we have drifted from our moorings is tragically illustrated in the weakening of our solidarity with the people of Palestine in their hour of gravest need. The NDA government has once again fractured the national consensus on the Palestine question, a consensus which goes back almost seven decades.

We in the Congress party are for good relations with Israel but not at the expense of our traditional close links with the Islamic world. The Congress party supports the legitimate demands of the Palestine people and expects the NDA government to act in a manner that will not put in jeopardy Indo-Arab relations.

Lakshadweep has always been a Congress fortress. It is one of the very few constituencies from where the Congress has never been defeated. I pay my humble tribute to the hundreds and thousands of Congress workers who have made this possible. I am privileged to inaugurate this mahasangamam of the most undefeated Congress unit in the country.