Plot to crucify Deve Gowda was taken on Good Friday

George Iype in New Delhi

The Congress party's decision to 'crucify' Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda was taken on Good Friday. The plan, which was known to a few senior Congress leaders, was executed on Easter Sunday.

Many Congress leaders, thus, say the fall of the United Front government has resulted in the 'resurrection' of the party, which had received a body blow at the hustings in April-May last year.

"We decided to bring down the government as we felt that the time is up for the resurrection of the Congress party," senior Congress Working Committee member and former industry minister K Karunakaran said.

Quoting a Malayalam proverb, the former Kerala chief minister, who played the kingmaker's role when P V Narasimha Rao was made prime minister in 1991, told Rediff On the NeT: "We told Deve Gowda and his ministers to rule well. We then pinched them. Now we have slapped them."

According to Congress sources, while the plan to oust Deve Gowda has been high on the agenda of party chief Sitaram Kesri ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party pulled off a coup in Uttar Pradesh, it was crystalised on Good Friday.

And the men who got together to give finishing touches to "the Congress coup" were Kesri, Karunakaran, K Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy and Sharad Pawar. The meeting was far from smooth. While Kesri and his two ardent supporters -- Reddy and Karunakaran -- insisted that there was no need to wait to pull down the Deve Gowda regime, Pawar protested saying that the party should not take a hasty decision and wait a little longer.

Reddy and Karunakaran tried to pursue the Maharashtra strongman, arguing that the Deve Gowda government's actions in the past 10 months showed that the Congress has been at the receiving end. Karunakaran specifically pointed out the UP situation where the UF lost a chance to form the government because of its adamant stance towards the BSP.

But the Maharashtra strongman, who is also the floor leader of the party in Parliament, would take no arguments. He said the decision had to wait at least till the Budget session of Parliament ended. The arguments finally resulted in Karunakaran and Reddy raising their voices which forced the Maratha leader to walk out of the meeting. Pawar, then, left for Bombay and then Pune on Saturday.

Despite the failure of the Congress leadership to persuade Pawar to toe its decision, Kesri went ahead with his plans and called more senior leaders on Saturday to inform them of his plan. They included UP Congress leader Jitendra Prasada, R K Dhawan and Pranab Mukherjee.

Meanwhile, on Saturday morning Kesri sent Reddy to Deve Gowda to convey him that most of the CWC members were ill at ease with his government and the therefore wanted to withdraw support.

All these days, Kesri made it a point that neither his predecessor P V Narasimha Rao nor any of his supporters were in the know of the crucial discussions.

While many Congress leaders do not anticipate any threat from the Rao camp, they fear that the disgruntled Pawar and his supporters might create hurdles to the party's move to form the government.