Cong says studying Sachar Committee Report

New Delhi,Dec 4 (UNI) The Congress will study the Sachar Committee Report on status of Muslims before arriving at a conclusion while the Government will come out with its Action Taken Report on its recommendations in Parliament at an appropriate time.

Stating this at the customary press briefing in the Parliament precincts here today, Congress spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi said the party was not proceeding on the report ''on a caste basis but on the basis of their social and educational backwardness.'' The Sachar Committee too had conducted their study on these parameters, he said.

On the entry of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi into active politics, Mr Chaturvedi said Congress President Sonia Gandhi had already spoken on the subject at the Chief Minsters' Conclave at Nainital and he had nothing more to add to it. However, he pointed out that the decision ultimately lay with Mr Gandhi himself. ''It is he who has to decide.'' About the Trinmool Congress's agitation against allotment of agricultural land to Tatas in West Bengal, he said the Congress' policy had always been that the farmers' cultivable land must not be used for non-agricultural purpose. ''The issue of acquisition of their land must be solved in consulation with farmers. The farmers in the state are apparently not satisified and agitated,'' he noted, calling on the state government to engage in dialogue with them and take them into confidence.

''The Congress was opposed to use of force by the Government against the farmers in West Bengal,'' he noted.

About the possibility of President's Rule in Uttar Pradesh,Mr Chaturvedi claimed that the law and order situation had completely broken down in the state and the peoples' sentiments were against the state govenment.

''The Congress had presented the situation as it existed in Uttar Pradesh and now it was the Centre which had to take a decison on President's Rule,'' the spokesman said.

UNI YS VD KP1756