Bhandari for probe into Gujarat riots

RJD asks PM to remove Narendra Modi; CPM says hand over all riot cases to CBI

While a deafening silence prevailed in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the former Gujarat governor's remarks that removal of Chief Minister Narendra Modi after the riots could have helped salvage the situation, Sunder Singh Bhandari today demanded a thorough inquiry into the "failure" of the state government in dealing with the riots.

A day after comparing the post-Godhra violence in February-March 2002 to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the senior BJP leader today said that only a thorough inquiry could brought out the facts.

"I do not think the whole thing can be attributed to an individual. If at all, it was a system failure or failure of administrative machinery. I would like a thorough inquiry into where and how there was a gap," he told a television channel.

Asked if this meant he was not blaming an individual or the way Modi handled he riots, Bhandari, who was the governor at the time of riots, said, "The point is let the enquiry bring out facts. If something is necessary on the basis of the inquiry then only I will be able to say."

In an interview to Outlook Saptahik, a Hindi weekly, Bhandari had blamed Modi and the BJP central leadership for their "failure" to respond quick and firmly in acting to control the post-Godhra violence.

"The riots were taken lightly and this left deep wounds, which need to be healed. People would continue to remember Godhra in the same ways they recall the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, which took place 50 years ago," he is quoted as saying.

Asked if BJP chief LK Advani was the right man to head the party now and on the quarrel between generation next leaders, the senior party leader said "Advani has been leading the party before also. And very successfully.

"The party rose to this height in his presidential career. So nothing can be attributed to an individual. It is a situation that has developed like that. And this is because of weakness or a non-functional organisation, which is the reason for this."

Asked whether some leader of the next generation should have taken over as leader of the party, he said "that would have been better. But I think the situation perhaps was so pressing that somehow the arrangement was to be made."

Meanwhile, reacting to Bhandari's charges, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) today demanded that Modi should immediately be removed, the CPI(M) said that all Gujarat riot cases should be handed over to the Central Bureau of investigation (CBI) for a through and fair probe.

"The former director-general of police has also corroborated what the former governor has said. Bhandari said the Modi government did not act promptly against the culprits of the communal carnage which followed the Godhra incident," CPI(M) leaders Basudeb Acharia and Rupchand Pal said.

The chief minister, Acharia said, had played "an active role" in the entire episode.

"Bhandari pointing fingers at Modi is enough to prove that the BJP government in Gujarat has lost its constitutional relevance to continue in power,' said RJD spokesman Shivanand Tiwari.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should apply Article 356 to dismiss the Modi government without wasting any time, Tiwari said and added "failing to do this would be considered as weakness of the Singh government."

Before Bhandari, former President KR Narayanan had accused former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of not "'properly utilising services of the army to control communal riots in Gujarat," the RJD leader said.