Vijayawada: Accusing Pakistan of "funding,
aiding and abetting" terrorists, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah
Naidu on Friday demanded that the Centre should press the
neighbouring country to hand over underworld don Dawood
Ibrahim and other accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
"The US government has successfully ended the era of
international terrorist Osama bin Laden. Taking a cue, we also
should prepare to teach a lesson to Pakistan which is funding
aiding and abetting terrorists. The international mood is
against Pakistan and in favour of India. Our government should
ask Pakistan to hand over Dawood and the other accused in the
26/11 terror attack case," Naidu told reporters here.
"If we don`t act, it will be considered that our
government, particularly the Prime Minister is weak," he said.
Naidu said when the entire world was expressing its
happiness over the death of bin Laden, "Congress leaders
disapproved of the way he was buried."
"Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh`s comments on
Osama`s burial should be taken as the views of the Congress.
Such comments at a time when the entire world is appreciating
the role of US for killing a global terrorist shows that the
party is still trying to please Muslims with vote bank
politics," he said.
Digvijay, criticising the US over the burial of Laden at
sea, had reportedly said that however big a criminal one might
be, his religious traditions should be respected while burying
him.
Naidu also demanded that the Union government allow rice
export in the interests of farmers who have suffered due to
fall in prices of paddy.
"After 1947, this year our country has recorded the
highest production of food grains at 235 million tonnes.
Weather experts are expecting another good monsoon in the next
Kharif season and also expecting a good food production. The
buffer stock with government as per the norms is 212 million
tonnes but in actual its double at 442 million tons.
"The Food Corporation of India (FCI) also has no storage
facility to keep up the excessive stocks and it is unable to
procure paddy. In this situation, we should export some
quantity of food grains to keep up the Minimum Support Price
for paddy," he said.
Due to failure of paddy and rice procurement, prices came
down to Rs 820 a quintal instead of Rs 1050 MSP, Naidu said.
PTI
