Kalam

New Delhi, March 4: Once bitten, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is not taking any chances with speeches or public appearances ahead of the general elections.

Kalam has decided to stay away from public functions where his speeches could be misinterpreted by parties for political mileage in the run-up to the elections.

“He is not going to attend functions since he does not want to leave any scope where his speeches can be subjected to various interpretations,” the President’s press secretary, S.M. Khan, said.

Kalam appears to be scrupulously sticking to the model code of conduct, though it does not apply to him, after the Digvijay Singh government last year latched on to a comment he reportedly made in his Independence Day-eve speech.

The then Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had packed Bhopal with hoardings on Kalam’s reported comment that ran to the effect that the future generation would not remember temple and mosque, but only the development undertaken by the Centre.

The hoardings had sparked protests and counter-protests by the BJP and the Congress.

Kalam’s decision, which came into effect after the Election Commission announced the poll schedule on Sunday, was evident today in his absence from a two-day defence seminar that started this morning at Vigyan Bhavan.

The invitation to the media and guests on “Army 2020: Shape, Size and Structure and General Doctrine for Emerging Challenges” says the President would inaugurate the seminar.

But at 11 am today, organiser Lt General Vijay Oberoi, who is the director of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, announced that the President could not make it as he had decided to stay away from public functions.

Khan said it was a conscious decision. When the President attends a function, he has to give a speech about the present and past status of the subject in hand, which could be interpreted in any manner, the press secretary said.

Kalam had dropped a trip to Guntur in Andhra Pradesh on March 2, immediately after the poll schedule was announced, Khan said.