Opposition guns for govt

GANDHINAGAR, July 27: A delegation of the Opposition parties, led by Congress Legislature Party leader Amarsinh Chaudhary, called on the ...

GANDHINAGAR, July 27: A delegation of the Opposition parties, led by Congress Legislature Party leader Amarsinh Chaudhary, called on the Governor at the Raj Bhavan this evening and demanded immediate dismissal of the Keshubhai Patel Government for its “failure in tackling the Kandla catastrophe and checking the recurring violent attacks on minority communities.”

The delegation urged Governor Anshuman Singh to direct the BJP Government to constitute an all-party MLAs’ team and send it to the towns and villages for on-the-spot assessments of the situation arising out of the recent mob attacks on minority communities. It also demanded that a post mortem be conducted on the 32 bodies discovered recently by a Congress team on two islands, two kms off Kandla, to ascertain the cause and time of the deaths.

In a memorandum to the Governor, members of the Congress, RJP and Janata Dal, alleged the discovery of the bodies had established that the Government was more engrossed in hiding the facts and figures of the Kandla tragedy than rescuing the cyclone victims.

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It is suspected that the 32 victims might have been swept alive to the islands and since the authorities knew little about it, the cyclone victims might have died of starvation, the memorandum pointed out, adding even senior Minister Suresh Mehta, who was rushed there, had counted at least 16 bodies.

Earlier, Chaudhary told reporters at his official chamber that since the Centre was yet to concede the Government request for an Inquiry Commission, “we demand that a commission headed by either a sitting or retired Supreme Court Judge be constituted to probe the circumstances leading to the Kandla tragedy”.

He said the BJP Government had no moral right to continue in office even for a day as it had failed on all the fronts. The Government had started victimising Congress workers and the minority communities were being attacked by RSS-VHP-Bajran Dal workers, he said. The police, Chaudhary charged, was being communalised and Sangh Parivar activists.

Meanwhile, Rashtriya Janata Party announced a convention of minorities in Gandhinagar on August 4 in protest against the government failure in “checking attacks on the Muslim community by the fascist forces in South Gujarat region.”