CHENNAI, July 26: ``The worst insult to parliamentary democracy'' -- was the quintessence of the barrage of condemnation and scorn that followed Laloo Prasad Yadav's latest decision to place wife Rabri Devi in the Bihar Chief Minister's seat.

The outspoken Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, said on Saturday that Laloo Yadav had staged a cynical ``drama'' by resigning and installing his wife Rabri Devi as Chief Minister.

``There is not much difference between Laloo ruling the State from a prison, as he claimed he would do if necessary, and his wife Rabri Devi functioning as the Chief Minister. Only the strategy and the tactics have changed.''

Surjeet told media persons in the city. Asked whether Bihar Governor AR Kidwai had no alternative but to get Rabri Devi sworn in as Chief Minister, he said he did not want to comment on Kidwai. Surjeet clarified that his party was against imposing President's rule in Bihar as they believed in using Article 356 only sparingly.

In Chennai, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi had no words of support for Laloo's latest act. ``Anyone can become a Chief Minister in a democracy,'' was his cryptic comment on Rabri Devi. Asked if the crisis in the UF caused by the Laloo issue had ended, Karunanidhi said, the problem had ended ``as far as he (Laloo) was concerned.'' Bharatiya Janata Party President L K Advani, however, spared no words in his condemnation. He described Rabri Devi's succession as Chief Minister as ``a worst insult to the very system of parliamentary democracy.'' ``Yadav's resignation while on the verge of being arrested on a serious corruption charge and making his wife his successor was not just farcical, it is downright fraudulent,'' Advani said in a speech at the two-day meeting of the party's national executive.

PM reticent

``I do not discuss family affairs,'' was Prime Minister I K Gujral's comment when asked about Laloo Prasad Yadav's move to make his wife, Rabri Devi, Bihar's Chief Minister. The Prime Minister said he had made it clear that ``no person in public life who is chargesheeted should occupy any high office''. ``Please don't ask any more questions on Bihar. I do not discuss family affairs,'' he shot back when journalists wanted to know whether he endorsed Yadav's action.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.