The Bharatiya Janata Party Tuesday said it
would launch a nation-wide campaign against the Congress
for ''hoisting misrule'' in Bihar by opposing the
ratification of the President's rule.
Party spokesman K L Sharma, MP, said they would also
launch an agitation throughout Bihar against the ruling
Rashtriya Janata Dal.
His party would, thus, expose the 'anti-dalit' and
'anti-people' role of both the Congress and the RJD, he
added.
Charging the Congress for misusing Article 356 over 100
times, the BJP leader pointed out that it was misused 48
times during Indira Gandhi's tenure as prime minister.
And in almost all those cases, the ground reality for
imposing Central rule was not as severe as it is now in
Bihar, he added.
''The Congress has to pay a heavy price for this act,''
he cautioned.
Sharma also charged the party with setting a ''bad
precedence'' in Parliament by trying to drag the top
brass of the armed forces to the House. He said the
government would stoutly oppose the Congress demand to
have dismissed naval chief Vishnu Bhagawat during a
discussion.
"It has never happened in the history of Parliament,"
Sharma said.
The spokesman said the BJP's parliamentary party
discussed these two subjects at its meeting Tuesday.
Home Minister L K Advani gave a detailed account of what
happened in respect of Bihar. Later, Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, who presided over the meeting, rounded
up the discussions and asked the members to be ''alert''
and present in the House all the time to meet any
exigency since the Congress was not trustworthy.
''It (the Congress) says one thing and does just the
opposite,'' Sharma said.