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Constitutional review is a ruse to usher in dictatorship, says Mulayam

Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav today said a conspiracy was being hatched to take the country towards dictatorship in the garb of amending the Constitution, and called upon all secular parties to raise their voice against it.

''There is no need for an amendment or review of the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution were able and far-sighted, '' he said in Lucknow.

He pointed out that the Constitution had the provision to help run a prosperous and progressive democracy. ''The question is of the intention of the people in power. Is the Constitution responsible for the rampant corruption, poverty, unemployment, and poor law and order situation in the country,'' he asked.

''Does the Constitution say that people with criminal tendency should be made ministers, does it say that electricity should not be supplied to industry or to farmers for irrigation?'' he asked, and said some people wanted to conceal their inefficiency by blaming the Constitution.

Turning to the central government, Yadav said people's belief that A B Vajpayee would make an able prime minister had been shattered. He had proved to be the weakest prime minister so far. The supporting parties were making him dance to their tunes and he has kept quiet, Mulayam Singh alleged.

Asked how would he fight communalism when Chandrababu Naidu, convener of the United Front which had pledged to fight communal forces, had himself joined the BJP camp, Mulayam Singh said no doubt Naidu had been the biggest deceiver, but the action of any one person did not mean the end of principles.

Asked whether there were differences between the Samajwadi Party and the United Front on extending support to the Congress in forming the government, he said the same Front leaders had expressed no such reservations for one-and-a-half years when they ran their government with the Congress's outside support.

The SP chief said he failed to understand why the Congress, which was considered good for taking support, should be treated differently when the question of extending support to it arose.

Mulayam Singh admitted that it was a political blunder on the United Front's part not to support the Congress this time in forming a government.

He said the Samajwadi Party did not see the Congress as an alternative. On the other hand, it had always remained non-Congress in its politics. But in order to prevent the BJP from coming to power, it would be right to support the Congress if the latter was in a position to form a government.

The double standards about the Congress helped the BJP form the government at the Centre, which in turn poses a big threat to parliamentary democracy, he opined.

UNI

EARLIER REPORT:
Non-Congress Opposition parties feel review of Constitution is unnecessary

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