Will gather info on Cong leader's statement about 'Godhra-like incident' in K'taka: HM Parameshwara
Bengaluru: Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Thursday said the state government will gather information following senior party leader B K Hariprasad's claim that a 'Godhra like incident' was likely in the state.
On the other hand, the state unit of BJP mounted attack on the ruling Congress over the issue and demanded the immediate arrest of Hariprasad.
MLC Hariprasad had on Wednesday claimed that there is a possibility of Godhra-like incident in Karnataka in the run up to the consecration ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22. The Karnataka government should be alert because in Gujarat during the same occasion, the Kar Sevaks were set on fire at Godhra, he cautioned.
ALSO READ: Godhra-like incident possible in Karnataka in the run up to Rama temple consecration: B K Hariprasad
The 2002 Godhra train burning case had plunged Gujarat into one of the worst communal riots. Reacting to Hariprasad's statement, Parameshwara said, ''We don't have any information. If a situation like that rises then our department (police) is capable of handling it. We will not let such things happen.'' Responding to a reporter's query on summoning the MLC to get details, he said it can be considered because he is a senior leader and he must have the information.
The Minister, however, said there was no need to issue notice to Hariprasad as of now. ''When there is a sensitive matter we will first gather information. We will handle the case the way it should be,'' Parameshwara explained.
Former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai charged the Congress MLC with 'instigating' people to commit such incidents.
''The Home Minister says he as no information while the MLC says he has inputs. This means there is intelligence failure. The police would have registered an FIR if an ordinary person would have given a similar statement,'' Bommai told media persons.
Accusing the government of using different yardstick, he demanded that Hariprasad be summoned to the police station for inquiry.
Former minister K S Eshwarappa said the statement gives an impression that Hariprasad has information. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel also demanded the arrest of the Congress MLC saying he has all the information about the incident.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
How Manmohan Singh defended landmark 1991 Union budget
New Delhi (PTI): Manmohan Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms, had to literally face a trial-by-fire to ensure widespread acceptance of his path-breaking 1991 Union budget that saw the nation rise from its darkest financial crises.
Singh, the newly-appointed finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao-led government, did it with great elan -- from facing journalists at a post-budget press conference to irate Congress leaders unable to digest the wide-ranging reforms at the parliamentary party meeting.
Singh's historic reforms not only rescued India from near bankruptcy but also redefined its trajectory as a rising global power.
Singh made an unscheduled appearance at a press conference on July 25, 1991, a day after the presentation of the Union budget, "to ensure that the message of his budget did not get distorted by less-than-enthusiastic officials", Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote in his book "To the Brink and Back: India's 1991 Story" that recounts the fast-paced changes that took place after Rao became prime minister in June 1991.
"The finance minister explained his budget -- calling it 'a budget with a human face'. He painstakingly defended the proposals to increase fertiliser, petrol and LPG prices," Ramesh recounted in the book published in 2015.
Ramesh was an aide to Rao during his initial months in office.
Sensing the disquiet in the Congress ranks, Rao called a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) on August 1, 1991, and decided to allow party MPs to "vent their spleen freely".
"The prime minister stayed away and allowed Manmohan Singh to face the flak on his own," Ramesh wrote, adding that two more meetings took place on August 2 and 3, in which Rao was present throughout.
"In the CPP meetings, the finance minister cut a lonely figure and the prime minister did nothing to alleviate his distress," Ramesh recounted.
Only two MPs -- Mani Shankar Aiyar and Nathuram Mirdha -- backed Singh's budget wholeheartedly.
Aiyar had supported the budget, contending that it conformed to Rajiv Gandhi's beliefs on what needed to be done to stave off the financial crisis.
Bowing to pressure from the party, Singh had agreed to lower the 40 per cent increase in fertiliser prices to 30 per cent but had left the hike in LPG and petrol prices untouched.
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs met twice on August 4 and 5, 1991, to decide on the statement Singh would make in the Lok Sabha on August 6.
"The statement dropped the idea of a rollback, which had been demanded over the past few days but now spoke of protecting the interests of small and marginal farmers," Ramesh said in his book.
"Both sides had won. The party had forced a rethink but the fundamentals of what the government wanted -- the decontrol of prices of fertilisers other than urea and an increase in urea prices -- had been preserved," he recounted.
"This was political economy at its constructive best -- a textbook example of how the government and the party can collaborate to create a win-win situation for both," he added in the book.
