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Swamy says people should decide on foreign origin issue

Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy said in Madras today it was for the people to decide whether a foreign- born person was eligible to hold the office of prime minister in the country.

Addressing a press conference, he said as per Indian law and Constitution, any citizen, natural or naturalised, was eligible to hold any high office.

''If this law needs to be changed, it should be left to the people to decide,'' he said answering a question on the foreign origin issue raised by the three senior Congress leaders.

Now that the issue is alive, if the Congress party wins the election, it is okay, otherwise, any future government can make the necessary changes if the people approved of them, he added.

Dr Swamy parried a question whether the current election could be regarded as a referendum on the eligibility of foreign-born citizens holding high offices.

Declining to comment on the letter written by Sharad Pawar and two others to Sonia Gandhi on the foreign origin issue, he said this was an internal matter of the Congress.

He also declined to comment on the resignation of Gandhi as president of the party.

Dr Swamy claimed that the current controversy in the Congress has taken the wind out of the sails of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He said if the issue was blown out of proportion, then the issue of some BJP leaders hailing from Pakistan should also be raised.

Answering a question, he said while the United States barred citizens of foreign origin from holding the highest political office, countries such as Peru permitted it.

He did not agree with Prime Minister Vajpayee's view that the issue has to be nationally debated.

Asked whether the current controversy in the Congress would affect the Congress-AIADMK alliance, Dr Swamy said his party's alliance was only with the AIADMK and he was not bothered about other things.

UNI

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