Mulayam targets BJP, Cong on 'Vande Mataram' issue

Gwalior, Sep 5 (UNI) Maintaining that no person could be forced to sing 'Vande Mataram', Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav today said the Congress displayed haste on the issue and now the BJP was playing politics.

''There was scant need for the Centre's letter. Threats cannot make a person patriotic. 'Vande Mataram' used to be sung by everyone earlier and assembly sessions still begin with it,'' Mr Yadav told journalists at the local airport.

The visiting political leader said he would not compel any denizen of the State to sing the song on September 7, the 100th anniversary of the singing of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's immortal creation by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore at the INC's Calcutta (now Kolkata) session.

On Ayodhya's Ram temple issue, he claimed, ''The masses desire development, facilities, employment and prosperity but not a shrine.

It is no longer an issue. Those who raised it were wiped clean from national as well as state-level politics.'' Mentioning that he had been accused of playing the politics of casteism, the Chief Minister pointed out that caste was not the basis on which beneficiaries were identified for unemployment allowance and massive schemes such as the 'Bhoomi Sena Yojana' and 'Kanya Vidya Dhan Yojana'.

''The Muslim community is poverty-stricken, weak and uneducated, which is why there is special affection for them,'' he claimed.

Alleging police excesses on SP workers here, Mr Yadav came down heavily on the August 26 murder of Prof Harbhajan Singh Sabharwal at Ujjain.

''A regime that indulges in atrocity cannot exist for long,'' said the Chief Minister who visited workers injured after a police vehicle overturned following a recent demonstration against Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board (MPSEB) officials.

Describing the blackening of an MPSEB official's features as a ''reaction that manifested protest,'' he added that those responsible for Prof Sabharwal's demise should be arrested and punished irrespective of affiliation.

UNI MKS-AC SI KN1811