Mulayam Chooses Attack As Defence

Defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav appears to have decided that attack is the best form of defence. Faced with the prospect of a witch-hunt by the Chief Minister designate of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati, he yesterday highlighted the alleged links of a BJP leader with the murder of BJP MP Brahm Dutt Dwivedi. Talking to reporters yesterday, he said that, while political murders were common in the days of kings and emperors, the murder of Brahm Dutt in a democratic set-up is a matter for serious concern.

He said the matter was to have figured prominently in the debate that was to have taken place yesterday on the law and order situation in UP. (It was not held because the BJP chose not to move the motion).

Yadav said that the murder deserved a separate debate in the house. The BJP had mobilised all its MPs when Dwivedi was first murdered, to focus political attention on the crime situation in the state. The party then pulled back, and does not seem eager to talk about the murder. A senior UF leader claimed that the BJPs floor leader in the Lok Sabha, AB Vajpayee, had recently sent a message to some senior UF leaders, asking that the murder not be mentioned during the debate.

Clearly, Yadav wants to highlight the BJPs defensiveness over the murder investigation to either get a quid pro quo promise from the new state government that it will not go after him and his associates, or to prepare the ground for a counter attack. Mayawati has earlier promised to target Yadav in the pending investigations into the Muzzafarpur firing in October 1994, the violence at the state guest house, when Mayawati was staying there in June 1995, and the Ayurveda scam. There are a number of other criminal and other investigations that could be pushed against functionaries of the Samajwadi Party.