By IANS
New Delhi : The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which is dependent on the Left parties for its sustenance, Friday rejected the demand of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for imposition of the president’s rule in West Bengal.
“When so many things happened in so many other states and so many people died and there was demand for the president’s rule, you did not impose it. Don’t do one thing sitting here and another thing sitting there,” Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil told NDA members in the Rajya Sabha during a debate over the violence in Nandigram.
“When the framers of the constitution made provisions for Articles 355 and 356, then they naturally wanted them to be used. But very, very carefully.
“Surely, we have to use Articles 355 and 356 but there has to be due care so that we may not commit any mistakes like the time when nine state governments were dismissed,” he added.
Patil was referring to the Janata Party government in 1977-78 that dismissed nine Congress-led state governments after it defeated the Congress and assumed power at the Centre.
Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani, members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and party leader in the Rajya Sabha Sushma Swaraj, who demanded the president’s rule in West Bengal, were all then members of the Janata Party.
The minister said: “We will be very, very careful in using these articles. We don’t say that we will never use them. But we would like to use them only when there is a grave need for this.”
Patil supported the CPI-M’s claim in the Lok Sabha that Maoists had laid siege to Nandigram, preventing residents, police and administration officials from entering the region.
He said: “The arms and literature seized from there does indicate that violence was created there. They did not have anything written on their shirts whether they were Maoists or Naxalites. If I disclose everything here, it could by used by political parties.”
Nnadigram has seen violence since January over a proposed special economic zone the West Bengal government wanted to set up on farmland. The decision, later scrapped, sparked a turf war between the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and a Trinamool Congress-backed group.
A total of 34 people have been killed since January in Nandigram, according to official figures. But the opposition maintains that many more have died and that CPI-M activists have chased away many more from the area.