10-12-2004, 09:31 PM
New Indian Express, Oct. 10, 2004
<b>Anti-Sonia brigade floats new front</b>?
NEW DELHI: After exhausting all their strategies, the creme de la creme of anti-Sonia parties have floated<b> Rashtriya Swabhimaan Manch </b>a front whose sole aim will be to clip the wings of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The Manch will hold its first rally on November 4 in Delhi and unveil its agenda before the public.
Leading the pack are <b>former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, NDA convenor and Samata Party leader George Fernandes and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti. Also joining in are former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley, Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Nirupam and former Speaker and NCP leader P.A.Sangma.</b>
For all these personalities,<b> Sonia Gandhi is a ``national security threat'' </b>and should be contained from calling the shots. Manmohan Singh according to the Manch team, especially Subramaniam Swamy is ``a rubber stamp'' prime minister.
The need to float the Manch has surfaced with a reason: Most of the leaders are jobless or are being targeted by the Congress-led UPA Government. For the likes of Swamy, Nirupam and Sangma, Sonia's name is enough to inflame them. Similar is the case with Uma Bharti and George Fernandes, who had made Sonia's foreign origins their main election plank. As for Jaya Jaitley, it is more to settle the Tehelka scandal than anything else.
The Manch, floated on the birthday of socialist leader Jai Prakash Narayan, will be strengthened further.
Though the very structure of the Manch makes its agenda clear, NDA convenor George Fernandes, however, preferred oblique statements. When asked whether Sonia was their main target, he quipped: ``Is she so capable that we should all join hands to fight her?''
However, when grilled for long, it was Swamy who came out with the truth: ``<b>She is a national security threat.'' </b>While trying to play down <b>the general impression that Sonia sacrificed the post of Prime Minister, he retorted: ``She couldn't have become PM under the Indian Citizen Act.''</b>
The Janata Party leader also branded <b>Sonia's entire family as ``fraudulent'' </b>alleging that the Congress president had filed wrong details about her education in Cambridge University in her affidavit during the Lok Sabha elections.
Fernandes emphasised that it was the ``forum of personalities, and not of parties''. Perhaps, this explains the presence of Uma Bharati, who, as an individual and a BJP leader, could not take her fight against Sonia Gandhi to a logical end. But being part of the Manch, no one can object if she targets Sonia's foreign origins and goes to any extreme to shower abuses on her.
<b>Anti-Sonia brigade floats new front</b>?
NEW DELHI: After exhausting all their strategies, the creme de la creme of anti-Sonia parties have floated<b> Rashtriya Swabhimaan Manch </b>a front whose sole aim will be to clip the wings of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The Manch will hold its first rally on November 4 in Delhi and unveil its agenda before the public.
Leading the pack are <b>former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, NDA convenor and Samata Party leader George Fernandes and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti. Also joining in are former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley, Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Nirupam and former Speaker and NCP leader P.A.Sangma.</b>
For all these personalities,<b> Sonia Gandhi is a ``national security threat'' </b>and should be contained from calling the shots. Manmohan Singh according to the Manch team, especially Subramaniam Swamy is ``a rubber stamp'' prime minister.
The need to float the Manch has surfaced with a reason: Most of the leaders are jobless or are being targeted by the Congress-led UPA Government. For the likes of Swamy, Nirupam and Sangma, Sonia's name is enough to inflame them. Similar is the case with Uma Bharti and George Fernandes, who had made Sonia's foreign origins their main election plank. As for Jaya Jaitley, it is more to settle the Tehelka scandal than anything else.
The Manch, floated on the birthday of socialist leader Jai Prakash Narayan, will be strengthened further.
Though the very structure of the Manch makes its agenda clear, NDA convenor George Fernandes, however, preferred oblique statements. When asked whether Sonia was their main target, he quipped: ``Is she so capable that we should all join hands to fight her?''
However, when grilled for long, it was Swamy who came out with the truth: ``<b>She is a national security threat.'' </b>While trying to play down <b>the general impression that Sonia sacrificed the post of Prime Minister, he retorted: ``She couldn't have become PM under the Indian Citizen Act.''</b>
The Janata Party leader also branded <b>Sonia's entire family as ``fraudulent'' </b>alleging that the Congress president had filed wrong details about her education in Cambridge University in her affidavit during the Lok Sabha elections.
Fernandes emphasised that it was the ``forum of personalities, and not of parties''. Perhaps, this explains the presence of Uma Bharati, who, as an individual and a BJP leader, could not take her fight against Sonia Gandhi to a logical end. But being part of the Manch, no one can object if she targets Sonia's foreign origins and goes to any extreme to shower abuses on her.