Press Briefing Wednesday, 25th January 2012

Shri Abhishek Singhvi addressed the media today.

Shri Abhishek Singhvi said the BJP is close to the vanishing point in all the three northern States going to the polls Uttarakhand, UP and Punjab. In Uttarakhand it is seeing the writing on the wall and a clear certain unseating of the government in power. In Uttarakhand people are asking again and again as to how the same party can seek their vote when on its own admission they have changed their own Chief Minister on the grounds of five years of mis-governance and corruption. Despite desperate attempts to fool the public this gimmick is not working in the electoral campaigns in Uttarakhand since it is based on an admission by the BJP itself. In Uttar Pradesh, it is interesting that nobody is talking about the BJP at all not for the second seat nor for the third or for the fourth seat. The BJP used to be a squabbling group at the centre with more than one PM-in-waiting. It has now been reduced in UP to the smallest possible squabbling group of many CMs-in-waiting. It is nothing but CMs-in-waiting which is passing off as a party in UP which is why it has disappeared from the electoral landscape of UP. There are many supposed Generals there but no BJP soldier to carry the party’s campaign forward. The entire campaign is based on personal advertisements of individuals each of whom is cutting and downsizing the other. In Punjab even the allies of the BJP are fearful that while self destructing themselves, the BJP will also destroy the allies. In Punjab the BJP is acting as a dead weight around the neck of anyone it supports. In Punjab the BJP is all but vanished from the few urban areas which it was claiming was their stronghold. Therefore, the question arises why this sorry figure for a supposed national opposition party. The answer is obvious. The BJP has time and again inside and outside parliament shown that it is an irresponsible party. It is a party which has no stake in the system. It is shown that it is obstructive. It objects for the sake of objection with no regard to the national or public interest it is a party steeped in double talk and hypocrisy or in speaking with a forked tongue. These abiding and established characteristics of the BJP have led to the situation where as I started it by saying in Uttarakhanad it is fast losing power; the expiry date is hardly 10 days or a week later. In UP it has vanished from the scene even the gossip talk does not talk of the BJP in position two or third or fourth and in Punjab the people are fearful of touching with the bargepole because it is the kiss of death if the BJP supports you in Punjab.

On the question of the reaction of the Congress party over the statement of Anna Hazare after seeing the picture ‘Gali Gali Mein Chor Hai’, Shri Singhvi said it is a serious point you are raising and not to be taken lightly. I would like to be educated and the whole country would like to be educated on this new definition of the Gandhian path. We would all like to understand this new approach to the Gandhian way which in the same breath talks of fast and sacrifice and the same breath repeats not once, not twice but many times about slapping other people. I am only talking on a matter of principle and I would respectfully like to say that this does not suit and is not appropriate or apposite for an elderly and a senior statured person like Anna to say or do.

On the question of the reaction of the Congress party over the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court that all encounters that had happened in Gujarat be probed, Shri Singhvi said I want to ask you - Is there any other state in India in India’s 60 years independent history which has received so many strictures, so many directions, so many enquiries and commissions, so many collective transfer of the cases outside the state as Gujarat has done and yet the politics of the Chief Minister and the party he represents is so thick skinned there. It is so devoid of moral values. It is so greedy for power at any cost that you will never see any offer of resignation much less of an actual resignation. This is absolute obduracy and insensitivity but then we are talking of Mr. Modi in Gujarat and that is the norm and these words are the norm in that state and the Chief Minister.

On the reaction of the Congress party over the fact that Salman Rushdie was not permitted video-conferencing, Shri Singhvi said that we are not here to get into an argument with any particular individual. We have made two or three simple points which I would like to reiterate in your presence. No state government can afford to ignore inputs and material regarding security threat to any person. It is the duty of the state government to carry both to the Home Ministry at the centre and the organizers. If tomorrow some untoward incident happens, you will the first to blame that very government for not communicating. After communicating the state government has always stood ready to provide security but on the basis of those inputs firstly Mr. Rushdie on his own has decided not to come and thereafter the organizers have cancelled the link. There is no question of government of India doing that.

On the issue of ISRO and the order of the commission regarding re-employment of Shri Madhvan , Shri Singhvi said there is an interim stand and till the final report comes, this should operate. The aggrieved party is entitled to challenge the said interim order. This is entirely for the government and for Mr. Madhavan to decide.

On another question related with the closure report in the Shanti Bhushan CD case and court’s orders thereon, Shri Singhvi said I have nothing to say on such legal proceedings.




(Tom Vadakkan)
Secretary, AICC