Press Release in April

07.04.2004
PRESS RELEASE
According to a PTI release yesterday, Congress President Ms.Sonia Gandhi, and candidate in the Lok Sabha constituency of Rae Bareli, has declared in an affidavit submitted with her nomination form that she has done a “certificate course in English from Lennox Cook, University of Cambridge”.

This is false affidavit because the University of Cambridge has no such institution called Lennox Cook. Earlier Ms.Sonia Gandhi made such a false claim in her biography published in Lok Sabha’s Who’s Who, but had to retract after I gave the Lok Sabha Speaker a letter from the University of Cambridge denying that Ms.Sonia Gandhi was every a student there.

Lennox Cook School in the city of Cambridge, U.K is a teaching shop that closed down in 1971. It had a six-week English language course for European girls to enable them to work as domestic servants the houses of the rich and wealthy in U.K.

What Ms.Sonia Gandhi should tell Indians is where and on what salary she worked from 1965 to 1968 before marrying Rajiv Gandhi.

(SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY)

09.04.2004
PRESS RELEASE
The POTA Review Committee’s view that MDMK leader Vaiko did no wrong in orally espousing the cause of the LTTE, is no surprise after the Attorney General Soli Sorabgee’s arguments in the Supreme Court that Vaiko had not committed any breach of the POTA provisions.

The Attorney General’s argument was bolstered by the utterly incompetent counter-arguments of the AIADMK Government’s legal counsels before the POTA Review Committee. Hence, Vaiko got his reprieve and licence to carry on his anti-national campaign. The BJP-LED Government should be condemned for this.

The BJP, led Government had intended POTA to be used only against the minorities in the country to frighten them, and not against terrorists organizations abroad and their agents in India. The Tamil Nadu Chief Ms.Jayalalitha did not comprehend this under current in BJP, and hence she has been let down by her electoral partner, the BJP, besides getting a black-eye from the POTA Review Committee.

(SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY)


15.04.2004
PRESS RELEASE
1. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha should campaign in Madurai for her party candidate only after announcing that it has been conveyed to the Union Civil Ministry that her Government has no more any objection to the Centre accepting my proposal to rename Madurai airport as Muthuramalinga Thevar International Airport.

The Union Minister of Civil Minister had informed me in writing in 2001 and 2003 that he had sent letters to the State Government stating that the Union Government had accepted my proposal to rename the airport after Thevar and had sought the State Government's "no objection" to it as well as asking them to acquire 60 acres of land in airport area for lengthening the runways to enable international flights to be able to land. But the AIADMK regime betrayed the hallowed sacrifices of Thevar and hurt nationalist sentiments by refusing to concur with the renaming proposal or acquire the land for an international airport.

The AIADMK is a product of the Dravidian Movement which was a stooge of the British Imperialists during the Freedom Struggle. Therefore the AIADMK leaders have no appreciation of the sacrifices made by national heroes such as Thevar for India's Independence. But Madurai, which city was in the forefront of the Freedom Struggle will not forgive or forget this betrayal of Thevar's memory.

2. I also demand that the Chief Minister before coming to Madurai ensure that the building in which Muthuramalinga Thevar breathed his last in Tirunagar area of Madurai is acquired by the State Government and made into a Memorial. The Indira Gandhi High School which is using that building be given adequate compensation and alternative place for a building.

3. The Jayalalitha government has also withheld permission to instal a statue in the Legislative Assembly of late P.Kakkan, former Home Minister in Kamaraj's government. The Speaker, Dr.Kalimuthu had written to me six months ago stating that my proposal was under consideration, but no action has been taken because Ms. Sasikala of 36, Poes Garden, Chennai has exercised her extra-constitutional authority to veto it.
(Subramanian Swamy)

16.04.2004
PRESS RELEASE
I strongly condemn the Congress Party's announcement yesterday that if voted to power, their government will not only not disinvest the share holdings of the government in public sector banks but buy back those shares which have already been disinvested. This announcement was made by their economic spokesman Pranab Mukherjee and reported in today's financial dailies. In the 1970s and 80s, the Congress government at the Centre had abetted the violation of all prudential norms of banking through loan melas and unsecured loans on recommendation of Rulin party politicians. Hence, banks had accumulated a huge baclkog of unpaid-back loans [Non-Performing Assets--NPAs] which had to be covered up by taxes imposed on the people. The Indian Bank case was a classic example of it, and had to be set right after I filed a PIL in the Supreme Court which is still being heard because the infamous "single directive" introduced by Mr.P.Chidambaram as India's worst Finance Minister since 1947. This single directive protected senior bank official from prosecution by CBI without prior clearance from political authority. It is a retrograde and corruption promoting measure which I have asked the Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional. .

Corruption in public sector banks is due to lack of accountability and transparency which can be corrected only by disinvestment and allowing depositors to be able to question Bank Directors in a share holder meeting. Today with the government owning 100% of the share capital there is no accountability. Hence I condemn the Congress party decision as a reversal of economic reforms.
(Subramanian Swamy)