Mumbai, Aug 10: BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu today urged that no political controversy be raked up over President A P J Abdul Kalam's proposed visit to Gujarat next week.
“I do not find anything wrong in the President visiting Gujarat. It is his prerogative,” he told reporters here. The President's office should not be drawn into any controversy, he said replying to a question on Kalam's visit to the state even as the Election Commission was studying the situation for holding of elections in Gujarat, which had witnessed large-scale violence. Maintaining that the atmosphere in Gujarat was conducive for holding elections, he said that the transport system, business transactions and educational system in the state were functioning normally and there was little to indicate that the state was not prepared for an election.
To a question about hundreds of people still living in camps in Gujarat, Naidu shot back, “I do not understand when elections can be held in Delhi where lakhs of Kashmiri refugees live in camps, why not in Gujarat?”
“Why do we have a different yardstick when it comes to Gujarat,” he said.
Bureau Report