Keep issues within party, BJP MPs told

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MAY 2. With the Khurana episode still fresh in everyone's mind, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, used the occasion of the BJP's parliamentary party today to remind the party MPs that while the Government believed in ``transparency'' and was ``ready to discuss any issue'' they must not rush to the press or take up in public matters for which the right forum was the party.

The episode is being treated as a ``closed chapter'' by the party, but, strangely, Mr. Madan Lal Khurana, who was to have been given an opportunity to discuss the three economic issues he had raised, did not attend today's meeting. A direct outcome of the Khurana drama is that a 30- page document entitled, ``Sankhya Vahini, Data Network for the Nation'', was circulated among the party MPs in defence of the project that has come under sharp criticism from the bigwigs of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. This was also one of the issues raised by Mr. Khurana. The document has apparently been prepared at the instance of the Prime Minister's Office and is an effort towards meeting criticism, but in the process it has also raised new issues. Mr. Vajpayee lashed out at the Congress(I) for its ``incoherence'' on the nuclear deterrent issue, a theme he had dwelt with last week while responding to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address to the joint sitting of Parliament.

The two teams sent by the party, one to Rajasthan and the other to Gujarat, came back to predictably report that in Rajasthan the State Government had enough funds at its disposal but had not done enough to relieve hardships faced by the people on account of the drought, while in Gujarat the State Government was doing a ``good job''.

The party has also scheduled a meeting of the Central Election Committee at the Prime Minister's residence on May 5 to select candidates for two Lok Sabha seats - Aska in Orissa vacated by Mr. Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal when he became Chief Minister and Panskara in West Bengal.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Next     : BJP backs Sankhya Vahini project