NEW DELHI, March 28: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today began his reply to the confidence debate by denying allegations that his government had a hidden agenda and that he was being run by "a remote control."At the end of the two-day-long debate, Vajpayee gave a point-by-point reply to the issues raised by Opposition MPs. His 45-minute speech, heard by the House in rapt attention, didn't have his characteristic sarcasm or bite. The stress clearly was on consensus.
"There is no hidden agenda of my government," he said. "I don't know what our opponents mean by this. As far as we are concerned, we'll remain committed to the national agenda for governance. There is no connection with any other agenda."
He then said, cheered by his MPs and those of his allies, that there would be no going back from the national agenda so long as the present government was in place and he was the Prime Minister.
He also dismissed allegations levelled by many opposition members that he was a mere remote control and amask. "The fact is I am not a person who can be guided by any remote control," he said. "I am not new to Parliament. Wherever necessary, I have differed with my own friends and defended my stance."
Taking a dig at the Opposition parties, the Prime Minister said that several remote controls were functioning elsewhere but nobody was talking about them because it was not to their liking.
Denying the claim of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav that he was being used as a mukhauta (mask), Vajpayee remarked: "This is not in consonance with my personality. I cannot be used as a mukhauta."
Vajpayee asked, while asserting that if any alliance could claim to have received the mandate to rule, it was the BJP-led alliance. "We never said that we had got the mandate," he observed.He then declared that even if BJP and its allies achieved a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha, "we would like to run the country on the basis of the consensual approach. Attempts should be made to resolve problems inan atmosphere of cooperation."
Responding to former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's charge that the national agenda was full of generalities, and that it contained no mention of any programme, Vajpayee observed that it had a definite programmatic content.
On foreign policy, he said that governments may come and go but the country's policy remains the same.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
