Gujral joins Moopanar in race to succeed Deve Gowda

External Affairs Minister I K Gujral and Tamil Maanila Congress chief G K Moopanar have emerged as possible candidates to replace H D Deve Gowda as India's next prime minister.

The United Front partners, who met at Deve Gowda's home on Wednesday morning, sent an official letter to Congress president Sitaram Kesri inviting the party leadership for a dialogue to settle the political crisis.

The UF leadership has, thus, constituted a five member committee comprising Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Farooq Abdullah, N Chandrababu Naidu, Sharad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav to sit at the negotiation table with Congress crisis managers Sharad Pawar, Madhavrao Scindia, Orissa Chief Minister J B Patnaik and Jitendra Prasada.

Both the Congress as well as the UF leadership are hopeful that the peace talks between them will break the 10-day old deadlock after Kesri's withdrawal of support to Deve Gowda.

There is a near unanimity that Deve Gowda's resignation is not far off and this has stirred a scramble for the post in political circles.

But the choice for the premiership has narrowed down to Gujral and Moopanar.

A section of Congress MPs as well as UF partners, especially the Janata Dal, are willing to settle for Gujral as he is credited to be the most successful minister in the Deve Gowda Cabinet.

In the past 10 months, Gujral has earned a bunch of bouquets for the landmark treaties he signed with India's neighbours—the Mahakali treaty with Nepal and the Ganga waters treaty with Bangladesh.

Senior Janata Dal leader and former prime minister V P Singh, who was actively involved in propping up Deve Gowda as prime minister, is said to be backing Gujral's candidature for the country's top job.

Gujral is one of the few former Congressmen who still maintains a cordial relationship with a number of senior Congress leaders including Kesri. He was the first UF leader who met Kesri after he decided to pull down the coalition government.

But Gujral's skills may not help him as Kesri is said to be in favour of Moopanar shouldering the responsibility of running the country.

Moopanar has the backing of Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the late Congress prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Most Congress leaders would be willing to settle for a candidate who has Sonia's support.

However, Moopanar's candidature may run into some problems. First, he is known as a "silent" MP in political circles, someone who has not raised a single question in Parliament in many years.

Second, Moopanar has been linked to the Rs 12 billion Indian Bank scandal, and this may lead the Janata Dal to argue against him and to press for Gujral's candidature.