By IANS,
Kozhikode : The Congress Friday said its central leadership has not taken any decision yet on including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala.
“The alliance with the NCP is a national level matter. The NCP’s decision regarding this is to be taken by (its chief) Sharad Pawar. He has to approach the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) and its chairperson Sonia Gandhi regarding this. A considered decision will be taken when the proposal is made,” Veerappa Moily, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesman, told reporters here.
The UDF is led by the Congress. State Congress leaders are opposed to the entry of NCP in the UDF alliance. The NCP’s state unit is led by K. Muraleedharan, the son of veteran politician K. Karunakaran, who had left the Congress only to rejoin it last year.
Commenting on the violence against Christians in Orissa, Moily said the central government had told Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to “either control things or quit.”
He said there are constitutional measures to address the issue. “Of course, that will be the last resort,” he added.
Blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party for the violence in Orissa, where 11 people have been killed by mobs in revenge for the murder of a Hindu leader, Moily said: “The BJP creates issues like Amarnath and Orissa whenever they feel weak and desperate.”
On the India-US nuclear deal, Moily said: “We have an independent foreign policy. When (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee was the prime minister, the National Democratic Alliance government was about to send troops to Iraq to assist the US. It was a strong letter from the then opposition leader Sonia Gandhi that made the government desist from the move,” he said.