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Congress may yet demand President's rule in Gujarat

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said her party has not ruled out the option of demanding the imposition of President's rule in Gujarat, but all aspects have to be thought of carefully before doing so.

The Congress president said this at the iftaar party she hosted on the spacious lawns of the All-India Congress Committee office in New Delhi on Saturday.

Gandhi's brief reply to a reporter's query came as she went about greeting the guests, who included a fair sprinkling of the city's glitterati.

Former Indian cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and his actress wife Sharmila Tagore were among the guests, as were Air Chief Marshal (retd) Satish Kumar Sareen and his wife.

But Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a notable absentee at the party, even though Gandhi had attended Vajpayee's iftaar party at the Hyderabad House just the day before.

Beleaguered Orissa Chief Minister J B Patnaik, who met Gandhi earlier in the day to give his version of the developments pertaining to the alleged rape of Anjana Mishra, was there.

Patnaik appeared to be confident of retaining his chair. He told a group of reporters who cornered him for a chat that a judicial inquiry had been ordered into the incident. "Nobody should be spared. If I am the culprit, if I am responsible in any way, I should be hauled up," he declared.

But he said the inquiry would have to take note of the "circumstances" of the incident -- why Mishra went out without her bodyguard and without taking an appointment with her lawyer. Besides, he said, the TV journalist (Sutanu Guru) accompanying Mishra had said he did not see anything when the incident occurred because his spectacles fell down.

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