Tehelka has exposed shortcomings: Vajpayee

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, MARCH 25. The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, today blamed the ``system'' for the ``shortcomings'' exposed by the Tehelka tapes.

Admitting that these needed to be ``rectified'' he averted accepting any responsibility on his part or that of his government, preferring to allow the corruption scandal to be seen as a disease afflicting the larger system.

Talking to reporters at the end of the two-day national executive committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Prime Minister said there was a ``need for introspection'' to prevent the occurrence of such incidents in the future. He thus repeated the statement of the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, calling for ``introspection'' within the party while intervening in the debate on the political resolution yesterday.

That was as close to admission of any guilt that the senior party leadership got. Mr. Vajpayee said there was a need for greater transparency in collection of funds by political parties, adding the BJP would now try to get more small donations from a larger section of workers and sympathisers.

Although the party itself has begun questioning the bonafides of journalists behind the Tehelka revelations, Mr. Vajpayee preferred to give them a clean chit, saying ``I do not blame the media.''

The short national executive meeting ended after adopting three resolutions and discussing at some length the situation in the five states going to polls in early May. While in Assam the party has decided against any major alignment, in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry it is part of the DMK-led front. In West Bengal the situation is not so clear, with the Trinamool Congress, which was to be its major partner, still hedging its bets and trying to tie up with the Congress without saying ``no'' to the BJP. And in Kerala, it has no option except to find some small lightweight allies, as it finds itself hemmed in by two major fronts, one led by the CPI(M) and the other by the Congress.

It is in Assam that the party is hoping to emerge much stronger, although it admits it is not in a position to form a government. And it is here that the ``political affect'' of the Tehelka disclosures will be tested.

Taliban attacked

Besides the political resolution which attacked the opposition for having unleashed the Tehelka episode as part of a larger political conspiracy, and an economic resolution which sung praises of the Government's economic policies, the party also adopted a strongly worded resolution deploring the Taliban for its ``medieval barbarism'' displayed in the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the rest of the non-Islamic legacy of Afghanistan.

The resolution made some sharp points - the Taliban- controlled areas in Afghanistan had emerged as the ``world's principal centre of international terrorism''; there was no doubt that Pakistan was the main supporter of the Taliban militia; this was a dangerous development that could affect world peace and order; the monuments and sculpture, now destroyed, represented human civilisational legacy; and finally that the United Nations and other international bodies must ``pre-empt'' any future acts of ``cultural vandalism'' by the Taliban.

The resolution saw in these ``fundamentalist deeds'' of the Taliban a ``conspiracy'' to specifically ``destabilise the Indian sub-continent.''

But the party did note that many Muslim organisations and Islamic countries had publicly stated their disapproval of the Taliban's actions and ``no Muslim scholar through the ages had ever delivered a fatwa ordering the (Buddha) statues to be demolished.'' The presence of the monuments was in no way a violation of the Islamic Sharia.

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