Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Wikileaks boomranged Congress in Gujarat Assembly

The opposition Congress party in Gujarat State assembly tried to raise the Wikileaks statement to disrupt the proceedings of the assembly on Wednesday. The Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil, at the beginning of the question and answer session, announced that the Congress has accessed a cable, released by the Wilileaks, of the US Consul General of Mumbai which said that there was a 'big ticket corruption' in Gujarat.

Speaker Ganpat Vasava agreed to grant time to Opposition to have a debate on the issue of leaked US cables after the question and answer session is over, Congress leaders were not satisfied and started raising anti-government slogans following the house was adjourned for an hour.

The Congress, later failed to provide the source of information to the reporters clearly losing the face on this act. The action was more to get some headlines to counter the news of praise of Modi in such a Wikileak message earlier this week.

In one of the leaked diplomatic cables accessed by The Hindu newspaper, Michael S. Owen, the US consul general in 2006, wrote to the US State Department that they might have to reassess the Gujarat chief minister, whose visa they revoked due to his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Owen also said that Modi has successfully branded himself as a non-corrupt, effective administrator, as a facilitator of business in a state with a deep commercial culture, and as a no-nonsense, law-and-order politician who looks after the interests of the Hindu majority. This news was given high publicity by certain section of local newspapers.


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