Cong turmoil not to affect party prospects — Singh

NEW DELHI, MAY 26: Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh has claimed that the latest crisis in the party would not damage its prospects, how...

NEW DELHI, MAY 26: Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh has claimed that the latest crisis in the party would not damage its prospects, however, admitting the likelihood of a marginal effect on the poll results in Maharashtra.

“I do not think there is any substantial damage. There may be some marginal effect in Maharashtra,” Singh said in an interview to Eenadu Television.

Stating that rebel Congress leader Sharad Pawar would go to any extent and “make any stratagem so long as it helps his ambitions,” Singh added that the Maratha leader’s “trail of treachery” in last four decades would be an issue in the elections.

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Singh also charged Pawar with liaisoning with former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters during the Babri Masjid demolition at Ayodhya and “ditching” his mentors including Y B Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and now Sonia Gandhi during his political career.

Asked if party president Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin would affect the poll prospects of Congress, he said, “Once they (people) have voted we will know…Let the people decide”.

Singh stressed that there was no need for amending the Constitution to bar foreign-born citizens from occupying high offices including that of the prime minister since people always had a right to accept or reject such candidates.

“The Constitution-makers did not find place of birth of a person as any issue. To raise this issue now, when it was debated and rejected by the Constitution-makers, is possible only if there is an animus against an individual…That is what Sonia Gandhi said: `Let the people decide what is best and good’,” he said.

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Asked how could the Congress oppose an amendment when it had amended the Constitution 86 times during its four-decade rule, he said, “I am not saying that no one is entitled to suggest or initiate a Constitution amendment…If somebody wants to do it he is free to do it…Congress finds nothing wrong in it because we were a party to this framing of the Constitution”.

Denying that lack of an internal cohesive mechanism in Congress had resulted in half a dozen vertical splits in past five decades, Singh said the split following his expulsion from the party in 1995 was not due to any accusation against party leadership but the issue of the “cover-up operation” in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.