Under pressure from allies to send a strong message to the country vis-a-vis the security situation, precipitative action by the Centre against Orissa and Karnataka as well as steps to dispel impression of being soft on terror has emerged as a possibility at an urgent meeting of the Union Cabinet that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened on Wednesday.
Sources asserted on Tuesday that the Cabinet meeting, convened on the demand of RJD chief and railway minister Lalu Prasad, would critically assess the internal security situation but denied that the objective was to persuade home minister Shivraj Patil to step down. ?The meeting will rather take a collective view of what action needs to be taken to put a stop to all that began in Orissa and is now spreading to Karnataka and even Kerala? a senior leader said. The meeting has been convened on Wednesday evening, with UPA managers citing the PM?s pre-occupation with the two-day governors? meeting during the day that concludes on Wednesday.
That the Congress was anxious to send out an ?enough is enough? message to the Centre and to the home ministry in particular was evident from the advisory handed out by senior AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on Tuesday. ?The home minister is wise enough to understand the seriousness of the issue. He will take appropriate action,? Singh said. ?Congress party is seriously concerned about acts of terrorism and we would like the government of India to act strongly on the issue?, he added.
In tandem, another party general secretary Prithviraj Chavan acknowledged that the party had sent a report to the PM recommending precipitative action against the Naveen Patnaik government either under Article 355 or Article 356. Charging that the developments in Orissa and Karnataka were being orchestrated by the BJP, he said the Congress report states that steps needed to be taken by the Centre to bring the BJP to book. ?It is state sponsored pogrom. The BJP is intending to get political mileage, spreading hatred for political reasons. But such ugly tactics will never work. The BJP will have to pay a heavy price?, Chavan, who is general secretary in charge of Karnataka, said. He also demanded an impartial judicial inquiry in Karnataka.
UPA managers, though, conceded that Patil was unlikely to be changed even though his performance was likely to come under sharp criticism at Wednesday?s meeting with a sizeable number of Cabinet ministers siding with the view that he had failed to stand up to the occasion. ?The home minister?s confidence is completely shattered,? a senior minister remarked even while pointing out that Patil, who spent the entire day at the Governor?s conference in Rashtrapathi Bhawan, looked unfazed. An aide of the home minister, however, said he had taken the negative press in his stride in his customary stoic manner. ?We should think about the problems faced by those whose near and dear ones were killed in the bomb blasts, which is much more than mine,? he is reported to have said.