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Dinesh Chandra
New Delhi, May 4: Stung by criticism from the Congress over the transfer of the home secretary ahead of elections, the Bhartiya Janata Party has again emphasised that the caretaker Government has full powers to take policy decisions and make appointments or transfers.
Charging the Congress and its friends with trying to bring the Government to a "standstill" till elections are held, party general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday: "In the last few days, we have heard a chorus of self-righteous indignation -- a caretaker Government can't do this, can't do that".
Stressing that there was nothing like a caretaker Government, he said: "What we have is the Government of India fully empowered under the Constitution to discharge its responsibilities to the people and to the nation".
"It is a Government backed by the mandate of the people till such time a new government is sworn in," Naidu said.
Citing precedents, Naidu said the President is believed to have communicated to the then Prime Minister IKGujral after dissolution of the house in December 1997 that "the present Government was not a caretaker government under the Constitution and has full powers, though they have to be used with discretion".
Similarly, in 1991, he said the then President R Venkataraman, while asking Chandrasekhar, who had resigned, to continue, had told him that a "Prime Minister is a Prime Minister with all the powers of that office".
Lashing out at the Congress, he said that for four decades the Congress ruled India without the slightest trace of morals and scruples and "spurned democratic norms and traditions--whenever the party has been in power, Government has become an extension counter of the Congress".
Doordarshan and All India Radio were reduced to blowing the trumpet for the first family of the Congress and resembled in-house propangada outfits of the party, Naidu said.
"Such noble thoughts about morals and scruples did not strike the Congress and the Communists when Chaudhary Charan Singh's Governmentfunctioned for nearly half a year as if it had the mandate to rule for five years," Naidu said, adding that Congress also did not object to Gujral's UF regime making crucial appointments even after elections were announced.
About the Election Commission's decision to hold the polls in September, Naidu said the party wanted the elections in June keeping in view the interests of the country and convenience of voters.
However, June or September, he said it did not make much difference to the party as there was a strong wave in favour of Vajpayee flowing across the country along with a strong anti-Congress wave.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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