The Hindu : No move to remove Modi, says BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 30, 2002

Other States

Other States - Gujarat

No move to remove Modi, says BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 29 . The Bharatiya Janata Party today strongly denied that there was any move to remove Narendra Modi from the post of the Gujarat Chief Minister. It was officially stated that this issue was not discussed at the two-day meeting between top RSS and BJP leaders at the Prime Minister's house yesterday and the day before.

The BJP spokesperson, V.K.Malhotra, said there was no question of Mr. Modi's resignation, especially at this juncture ahead of the debate under a substantive motion in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. The party would certainly not like to be seen giving in to pressure from the Opposition, or even from its allies and friends, the Telugu Desam Party, the Trinamool Congress and some others who have publicly demanded that Mr. Modi be removed. Mr. Malhotra confirmed that although the Gujarat situation was discussed at the RSS-BJP meetings, the question of Mr. Modi's resignation did not come up at all. There was no question of this, he said.

Mr. Malhotra was critical of what he described as "highly exaggerated'' reports of rape of women in Gujarat. He said that if such heinous acts had been committed, responsible people should come forward and lodge first information reports so that the guilty could be punished.

A day before the Lok Sabha debate which entails a vote at the end, the party was confident that the Vajpayee Government would be able to defeat the Opposition-sponsored censure motion related to the Gujarat violence.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Other States

Stories in this Section

Two boys killed in Ahmedabad blast

Exams in six weeks, Gujarat tells SC

No move to remove Modi, says BJP

Major fire at Ahmedabad building