Author: Bhaskar Roy
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 5, 2010
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sonia-approved-Azamgarh-trip-Digvijay/articleshow/5536819.cms
Faced with protests from the BJP and palpable
discomfort within his own party, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Thursday
claimed that he had the approval of party chief Sonia Gandhi and general secretary
Rahul Gandhi for his Mission Azamgarh.
"Before coming here to meet these families,
I spoke to the Congress president and also Rahul Gandhi," he told TOI
from Azamgarh. Singh was the first senior Congress leader to reach out to
the families of alleged terrorists and sought to appreciate their viewpoint.
"There are boys who have got some 60 cases registered against them in
four states," he said.
Singh said that neither had he promised the
families anything nor did they ask for the release of the boys. "The
only thing their parents are asking for is speedy trial of the cases,"
he said.
The party general secretary said he would
submit a report detailing the nature of the cases and views of the families
to both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress chief. "Why should
not there be a designated court to try these cases clubbing them together,"
he asked, saying this was something he would propose. However, Singh's visit
to the 'terror catchment area' of Azamgarh triggered considerable unease within
Congress. "You have to ask him for the meaning and scope of his statement
(in Azamgarh)," party spokes-man Abhishek Singhvi told reporters when
pressed for a response to Singh's Azamgarh trip.
The issue has acquired an extra dimension
as the Congress Working Committee is meeting on Friday to discuss the prevailing
price situation.
A group of BJP supporters staged a demonstration
in the afternoon outside the Congress headquarters protesting what they called
Singh's 'soft approach' to the issues of terror. Singh, in charge of Uttar
Pradesh affairs in the party, however, was unfazed. "Most of the people
arrested so far are not products of madrassa education. They are well educated
- I came here to understand why, how all this happened," he said.
He claimed that on his way to Azamgarh, he
faced hostile demonstrations by both the RSS-BJP elements and Muslim hardliners.
"I had it from both sides," he said.
Asked about the possibility of an adverse
impact of his Azamgarh visit on the party's poll prospects, he said politics
was not uppermost on his mind when he had decided to undertake the visit.
"Keep politics out of it; it's a sensitive matter if educated Muslim
youths lose confidence in the system," he said.
