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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is under considerable pressure from the hardliners in the Bharatya Janata Party not to concede any ground to the opposition on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, which is why he has not been able to summon an all-party meeting to discuss proposed amendments.
"BJP MPs have impressed upon the prime minister that POTO's teeth should not be taken out just because the opposition parties want amendments in it to suit them politically, even if the nation suffers," pointed out BJP Parliamentary spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra.
He indicated that this could be why Prime Minister Vajpayee was weighing the pros and cons before he summoned the all-party meeting for which no date had yet been fixed.
"If the date for it is fixed, we will announce it. The media should not jump to conclusions about it like it did before," Malhotra pointed out.
Union Law and Justice Minister Arun Jaitley reiterated that the government wanted POTO to be approved in Parliament without whittling down its provisions.
"We have said before that we want the ordinance to be passed. There is little point if it is converted into a toothless tiger, the entire purpose of bringing it forward would be defeated in that case," he pointed out.
During the recent conference on Centre-State relations, Jaitley had asserted that the government would simply go ahead with POTO.
He, however, pointed out that he did not wish to hazard a guess what would happen if the all-party meeting to discuss POTO was summoned by the prime minister.
The relentless pressure being exerted by a section of the BJP leadership appears to have put on hold the government's (read the prime minister's) earlier amenability to amend some of POTO's provisions, including the two affecting journalists.
According BJP sources, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani is among the party MPs insisting that POTO be passed in the Lok Sabha as it is, and if it is defeated in the Rajya Sabha by the opposition parties, they would have to explain their stand to the people.
"Vajpayeeji is in a quandary because he cannot offend the vocal section of the party leadership's hard stance on POTO but at the same time he cannot outrightly defy the opposition," a party general secretary pointed out.
He indicated that Vajpayee's crisis managers are engaged in thrashing out a solution, which could be acceptable to both the BJP hardliners as well as the opposition parties.
Only after that the all-party meeting would be fixed, he added.
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