The Union cabinet that met here on Wednesday appeared vertically split on the issue of banning the Bajrang Dal.
NEW DELHI: The Union cabinet that met here on Wednesday appeared vertically split on the issue of banning the Bajrang Dal.
So much so, that prime minister Manmohan Singh had to finally intervene and suggest sending a high-level ministerial team to violence-ravaged Orissa to gather “more evidence” before holding further discussions on imposing president’s rule in the state and banning the Dal. The team is likely to visit Orissa in the next few days.
What was most surprising was the division in the Congress camp. Railway minister Lalu Prasad (RJD) and steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s (LJP) demand for the ban found avid support from senior Congress ministers Arjun Singh, Jaipal Reddy and AR Antulay. But it also faced stiff opposition from home minister Shivraj Patil, law minister HR Bhardwaj and commerce minister Kamal Nath, who felt the ban should not be imposed without gathering “irrefutable evidence” against the outfit.
Given this mood in the cabinet, the possibility of the ban seems remote, at least in the near future.
As it is the home ministry and central intelligence agencies were finding it hard to gather “irrefutable evidence” against the Dal to prepare a ground for the ban, as most states where the outfit is either active or has presence were not cooperating.
Most states where the outfit is active are ruled by the BJP-led NDA, but even others, such as Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh (UP), which are ruled by the Congress and BSP, respectively, have provided very little inputs, a senior home ministry official said.
“Take the case of UP, the birthplace of the Bajrang Dal. After a recent incident in Kanpur involving Dal members, the state government’s probe was ambiguous,” he said.
The issue has a deep political angel to it, a senior leader of the ruling UPA at the Centre admitted. He pointed to the fact that at least three states ruled by the BJP combine are slated to go to polls in the coming months and the UPA would not do anything to spoil its chances.
a_anil@dnaindia.net
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