Satyagraha Conference, Congress or govt prog?

New Delhi, Jan 18: The BJP today sought to know if the WorldConference to commemorate the centenary of the launch of satyagraha bythe Father of the Nation was a programme of the Congress party or thegovernment.

Responding to the announcement of the conference by the Ministerof State for External Affairs Anand Sharma in which eminentpersonalities including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and six heads of thestate were to participate in the Centenary commemoration scheduled forJanuary 29 and 30, BJP Spokesman Prakash Javadekar said if it wasorganised by the Congress it was good because they needed to 'relearn'the essence of teachings of Mahatma through such a conference.

If the Congress was organising it, it was free to invite or leaveout the person of their choice to the function. However, if it involvedpublic spending than they could not leave out any political party bytheir whims and fancies but go by the protocol.

Referring to the participation of Spokesman of the ExternalAffairs Ministry at the news conference called by Mr Sharma, the BJPSpokesman said his presence was very legitimate if it was a governmentprogramme. However, if it was Congress' programme, then his presencepointed to the first signs of misuse of official machinery, he remarked.

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