Chennai: Senior BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leader and former Union Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi today (Sep 22, 2004) expressed confidence that a new Government would come to power at the Centre "very soon," which would ensure that the plaque containing the quotations of Veer Savarkar was relocated at the cellular jail in Port Blair.

"At the moment, the Government officials there may not do it. A new Government is bound to come at the Centre very soon. They (the officials) will be instructed to re-locate it," he told reporters at Meenambakkam airport on his way back to New Delhi from Port Blair.

"Unless the Government orders the officials, they may not do it. We are not going to force them. We will create an atmosphere all over the country for it. Now, it is for Veer Savarkar and then it will be for Bahadur Shah Jafar."

Joshi said the BJP's 'awareness programme' would continue throughout the country. The BJP would go to different parts of the country to explain to the people how the present regime at the Centre was trying to "remove the names of all the revolutionaries from public memory and create an impression that the freedom struggle was the monopoly of a single family only and everyone else persona non-grata."

Regretting that there was "no mention" in the history books of the contributions made by great leaders from the South towards the freedom struggle and nation-building, like C Rajagopalachari and Pattabhi Seetharamaiah and many others, Joshi said Congress leaders had even been "ridiculing" great leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Lala Lajpat Rai.

"They want to completely remove the names from the memories of the people and create impression that the whole freedom struggle is their monopoly and that it was led by a single family. After Independence also, the same tendency is continuing," he felt.

Joshi said though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and others had described Veer Savarkar as a "great patriot", one Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer, had aired a different view. "The Congress-led Government is unable to control its own ministers."

On possible rapprochement between the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government and the Opposition parties in the smooth conduct of Parliamentary proceedings, Joshi said it depended mostly on the ruling coalition.

"The ruling party should take proper view on the demands of the Opposition and look into them. There is a difference of only five or six in number of MPs between the ruling coalition and the BJP-led Opposition now," Joshi said.