Uf, Cong Hold Talks On Witch-Hunt

Yesterday saw a series of negotiations between United Front and Congress leaders on what the Congress has been refering to as a witch-hunt against its leaders. The negotiations came a day before the government is to submit a status report on the murder of Dr SK Tanwar to the Delhi High Court today.

A senior official indicated that the Delhi Police, which has been investigating the case, would ask the court for more time. The government would thus have a chip to bargain with Congress leaders, some of whom fear their careers could be ruined if the case is reopened.

The case on the 1992 murder was closed in 1994 with a final report that only named a Youth Congress leader who has already been arrested for another sensational murder. The names of senior party leaders, however, figure in some of the statements in the case files.

Though the Congress leaders have never specified in public what they meant by a witch-hunt, in private conversation they have been expressing anger on the government implicating its leaders in various criminal cases.

Apart from the CGHS doctors murder, they talk of the palmolien import case in Kerala, in which K Karunakaran is being investigated, the foreign contributions investigation, which could draw in Kesari and AK Antony and the JMM case, in which Kesari himself could be charged on Saturday.

UF leaders were earnestly explaining to Congress leaders that their government had not pushed these investigations, that the law was taking its course. They pointed out that Congress leaders like Rajesh Pilot had written to the Prime Minister asking that the murder investigation be reopened.

The political grapevine had it yesterday that finally Kesari was coming down to giving up his claim to be the Prime Minister if the government ensured that the Tanwar murder case did not become embarrassing for him and he was kept out of the JMM bribery case.

The murder case is to be heard by Justices Mohinder Narain and SK Mahajan this morning. The public interest litigation, on the basis of which the court had asked the police to give it a report, was initially heard by a bench headed by Justice MJ Rao, who was recently promoted to the Supreme Court.