By IANS
Ahmedabad/Vadodara : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday rejected the possibility of early general elections, and said the process to operationalise the India-US nuclear deal was on.
He also took pot-shots at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying its leadership was afraid of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Queried about Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s veiled threats about early polls if his government went ahead with the nuclear deal, Manmohan Singh said he did not see any such possibility.
Asked about the deal, Manmohan Singh told reporters in Ahmedabad: “The process is on. We will cross the bridge when we come to it.”
He added that the government would think of “the next step” only after the talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for India-specific safeguards was concluded.
The prime minister visited Vadodara and Ahmedabad to campaign for the Congress ahead of the second phase of the assembly elections in Gujarat Sunday.
Asked if his party would take action against the culprits of the 2002 communal violence if it took power in the state, he said: “We don’t believe in the politics of vindictiveness. If there are genuine grievances, one can have a second look on the basis of evidence.”
Manmohan Singh refused to make a direct comment on the acrimonious poll campaign in the state, with Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi trading charges.
Addressing a rally in Saurashtra Dec 3, Gandhi used the phrase “merchants of death” apparently with reference to the Modi government. Modi responded next day by virtually justifying the extra-judicial killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a Muslim youth wrongly branded terrorist.
Asked about Gandhi’s remarks, the prime minister said he was not aware of the exact context and so he could not comment.
But he said that the BJP was raising the issue of Sohrabuddin to distract attention of the people from the main issue of development.
Reiterating his earlier remark that there was an atmosphere of fear and hatred in the state, Singh said there should be an atmosphere of goodwill and forgiveness instead.
“Time has come for the people of the state to think afresh on who is best qualified to rule their state,” the prime minister said.
“The choice is whether the state will be governed by a party committed to the rule of law, equal rights to all regardless of caste and creed and unity in diversity – the sacred values enshrined in the constitution – or the one which sought to rule by sowing disunity, creating division and instilling fear.”
Asked about the BJP’s decision Monday evening to project L.K. Advani as its prime ministerial candidate in the next general election, Singh said the party seemed to be “nervous” about the outcome of the state election.
While saying that it was an internal affair of the party, he added in jest that the BJP was offering a candidate for the post that was still not vacant.
Fielding the same query in Vadodara, the prime minister said: “I am not well-versed with the internal affairs of the BJP but I have read that its central leadership too is frightened of Modiji.”
The prime minister denied the BJP charge that the central government was “discriminating” against Gujarat. The claim was “contrary to facts”, he said.
“In the four years of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) rule at the centre, the country has progressed at a very fast pace achieving a growth of as high as nine percent,” he said.
“This growth has enabled the UPA to launch bigger development plans and allocate more resources to all states, including non-Congress-run states like Gujarat. To say, therefore, that the state has been discriminated against is not correct.”