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Even as speculation about a possible split in the Congress Parliamentary
Party continues to be rife, the Congress on Wednesday blamed the "art of
rumour mongering and character assassination" of the RSS and its affiliates
for all such talk.
Describing the RSS as a Rumour Spreading Society, Congress spokesman V N
Gadgil said that the 'Sangh Parivar' had once again revived the age-old
technique of rumour mongering with aims of capturing power by hook or by
crook. After the temporary success in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Gadgil said, the
RSS affiliates had started employing any and every method and machinery to
destabilise other parties, cause defections and generally play negative
politics.
Mr Gadgil recalled that the RSS in which vested the real power of the Sangh
Parivar recently held a meeting of all its Pracharaks at Nasik and worked
out strategies to enable the Bharatiya Janata Party to come to power by any
and all means possible.
The Congress spokesman said that the RSS was a past-master in the art of
spreading vicious rumours and reminded that during the days of Mrs Indira
Gandhi, the 'Organiser' - the Sangh Parivar's mouthpiece - had quoted an
astrologer Varaha Mihir as having predicted her death due to cancer in 1971.
Mr Gadgil admitted that the following rumours were doing rounds as of now:
That senior Congress leaders had come together against Mr Sitaram Kesri:
that the Gujarat Congress would split: and that the CPP was also on the
verge of a split as 22 MPs had agreed to join the BJP while efforts were on
to persuade another 27, needed tot, adding up to the required one-third of
the party strength in the Lok Sabha.
He clarified that there was no truth whatsoever in such speculations. The
BJP, he said, would continue to day-dream of coming to power. The facts, he
added, were that the BJP did not have its own house in order and troubles
in different State party units has been surfacing during the process of
that party's ongoing organisational elections.
In Mr Gadgil's view, the BJP image took a severe beating after the UP
development and the Kalyan Singh Government's problem now lay in the
distribution of portfolios and expanding the Cabinet further.
Taking a dig at the jumbo-sized Cabinet in UP, the Congress spokesman said
his reports had it that the Kalyan Singh Government was contemplating
splitting various departments.
The Animal Husbandry Department, he thought, would be handled by an 'Animal
Minister' and a 'Husbandry Minister,' while the Department of Cooperation
would have a 'Minister for Cop' and a 'Minister for Operation.'
Continuing further in the same vein, Mr Gadgil said that a particular
legislator sought the Home portfolio and Mr Kalyan Singh decided to provide
him a TV at home and offered him the post of a 'Home TV Minister.'
The Congress spokesman was grateful to Mr Kalyan Singh and the BJP for
providing amusement in politics.
Congress assistant spokesman Ajit Jogi, meanwhile, said that options
remained open on the issue of Congress participation in the Gujarat
Government.
Mr Jogi also reiterated that there was no possibility of the Congress
participation in the United Front Government at the Centre.
Stating the party's position on the anti-defection law, Mr Jogi said that
defects in legislation had come to light over the years and these needed to
be taken care of.
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