REPORT

Fernandes' Reinduction Shameful : Sonia Gandhi

The Congress president, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, termed as ‘shameful’ the National Democratic Alliance Government’s act of reinducting George Fernandes as Defence Minister.

Addressing the ‘Parivartan Maharally’ at Lakshman Mela ground, Lucknow, on 15 October, Mrs. Gandhi said she was "concerned over the responsibility of the country’s security being entrusted to someone who had to resign to corruption charges".

"There are other able and experienced persons who could take over this responsibility", she pointed out and added that "such an attitude over the country’s security was shameful".

In New Delhi, the AICC Chief spokesperson, Mr. Jaipal Reddy, said "This is nothing short of blue murder of democracy. It entails distortion, perversion and subversion of all norms and forms of public life".

Mr. Reddy said "Mr. Vajpayee has displayed more cynical and more wanton disregard for political proprieties than any other prime minister in the history of free India. Mr. Vajpayee has truly reduced India to a banana republic."

He said that Mr. Fernandes who had quit the Cabinet through compulsion, has now returned through "blackmail".

The spokesman said "the Prime Minister is deliberately spreading a blatant falsehood that Mr. Fernandes has not been implicated in Tehelka tapes. But the fact of the matter is that the tapes show that there was intimate interaction between Mr. R.K. Jain, the defence dealer and treasurer of Samata Party, and Mr. George Fernandes with regard to atleast eight defence purchase proposals."

Referring to only two instances, he said Mr. R.K. Jain knew when he said that Dr. Abdul Kalam, the then Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, overruled purchase of Barak missiles. "Let Mr. Fernandes answer how Mr. Jain knew about this classified secret of the Defence Department.

In the second instance, Mr. Jain said that he was in Moscow during the same days as Mr. Fernandes was there.

The spokesman also objected to reinduction of Mr. Hiren Pathak into the Council of Ministers. Taking a snide at the Prime Minister, he said that Mr. Vajpayee perhaps thought that two wrongs would make one right.

Mr. Reddy said the Congress would take this issue to public through campaigns. "We shall take it up among the people and in the Parliament in every legitimate way," he added.