The party is united and committed to the programmes of Mrs Gandhi: Jagannath Mishra

Mishra :

India Today's Farzand Ahmed, Mishra spoke on some of these issues. Excerpts:

Q. Why is there a sudden revolt against you within the legislature party ?
A.There's no revolt against me. Only 10 to 12 partymen, all known traditional dissidents, have been speaking against me but they have no place in the CLP (I) which has a strength of 225 members. These people had always been against me, everybody knows this.

Q. Can you identify these "known traditional dissidents" ?
A.They are disloyal and want to wreck the party and weaken the Government for personal gains. They don't have faith in the party's programmes and policies. Their sole game is to weaken the leadership of Mrs Gandhi and strengthen the Opposition. They are, let me repeat, a disgruntled and frustrated lot, having no faith in democracy.

Q. Your opponents are claiming that more than 100 members have revolted against you and have signed a memorandum demanding a change of leadership...
A.Whatever their claim they are not more than a dozen and their names have repeatedly appeared in the press. No one else, except for these handful of people, has ever said anything against me. The party is united and committed to the programmes of Mrs Gandhi.

Q. Are you systematically trying to replace the Congress(I) by Congress (Jagannath) in Bihar ?
A.Nonsense. There is no leadership of Jagannath Mishra as an individual. Everything is of Mrs Gandhi. In the nation and the party, except Mrs Gandhi, nobody has anything. She is the main power house and everybody in the party derives strength from her. People know only her and therefore there is no question of individual leadership.

Q. Do you propose to take disciplinary action against what you called disruptive elements raising their heads in the form of dissidents ?
A.Certainly. Steps are already underway.

Q. There is a charge against you that you are trying or rather forcing the officers to drop some corruption cases pending in the Vigilance Department against you. . . .
A.What is wrong if I withdraw some politically-motivated cases? After all what were the cases? The Janata government headed by Karpoori Thakur secured confessional statements from those persons against me who were punished by my government in bungling and corruption cases. Has anybody heard of cases being launched against anybody on the basis of the confessional statements made by accused persons? If anybody had exposed loot in cooperative bodies it was I and none else. If I had any link with these elements I was not a fool to launch cases against them. The cases against me are clear cases of political victimisation and nothing else.

Tell me where is the contradiction? I have been saying only one thing about all this and have accepted my moral responsibility. I have ordered, without delay, enquiries by various competent agencies to get at the truth. I never tried to suppress the facts.

Q. How did you first get this information and when? Did somebody try to hide the facts from you?
A.I got this information on November 22 through a newspaper. I did not believe this at the first glance as I thought if it was true I would have been informed earlier through various sources. But it turned out to be true and I was shocked. Who suppressed it and why is a matter of enquiry but let me admit that somebody must have tried to suppress it. Once responsibility is fixed the guilty will not escape punishment.

Q. Why don't you sack and arrest your Minister of State Sadanand Singh who allegedly protected a gang of criminals in the district ?
A. Why should I take action against my minister whose crime has not yet been proved? If 10 people say he is guilty, this is no evidence for action. Moreover, no formal complaint has been lodged against him. It has only appeared in newspapers.

Q. Reports say that you are trying to pass on the buck to the Janata government for the blinding episode...
A.No, I have not been trying to do this. But it is a fact that the first blinding case occurred in October 1979. The alleged criminal Arjun Goswami himself had said in his tape-recorded statement that he was blinded in October 1979, that is during the Janata government.

Q. Why is the law and order situation so terrible in the state ?
A.It is not terrible. Rather it is gradually improving. Only today I made a statement in the Assembly, in the course of a special debate on law and order and I repeat this here also that it has improved a lot and is improving. There are three clear instances to prove that there has been tremendous improvement: total peace on the campus, people's rejection of the Bihar bandh called by eight parties on this issue and complete peace in the coalfield areas as a result of which production has increased manifold. Not a single major case of atrocities on Harijans has been reported during the past six months. The monthly rate of murders has come down to two from five in 1978, and four in 1979. Similarly, the number of rape case has fallen to three this year against six in 1978 and eight in 1979. There was total communal harmony this year against 24 incidents in 1978 and 10 in 1979 taking a toll of 14 and 153 lives respectively. Not a single person died in communal violence till December this year as the.administration was alert.

Q. What are your major achievements ?
A.Giving second official language status to Urdu in the state is one of the major achievements. I have fulfilled my party's poll promise, and barring the RSS and BJP, all opposition parties have supported this step. Other big achievements are in the field of education, land reforms and power sector. For the first time people were getting uninterrupted power supply as generation has stabilised but a lot will have to be done.

And for the first time in 30 years an industrial policy on scientific lines has been laid down. I have also succeeded in implementing the panchayati raj in full form.