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Suresh Mehta gets ready to revolt in Gujarat

Gujarat Industry Minister Suresh Mehta, who was reported to have held a meeting of his supporters yesterday at an ''undisclosed'' place in his native Kutch district amid intense speculations about his resignation from the six-month-old Keshubhai Patel government, has announced that he would decide upon his ''further course of action'' on reaching the state capital on Monday.

According to reports from Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch district bordering Pakistan, Mehta and his supporters held a meeting at an ''unknown place'' on Sunday morning. He was to have met the press at 12.30 pm yesterday but only his supporters turned up at Circuit House to inform the waiting journalists that the meet would be held two hours later.

Finally, the former chief minister told reporters in the evening that he was leaving for Gandhinagar to meet his supporters there. He said he was ''extremely concerned'' over the pace of police investigation into the murder of one of his senior supporters in Kutch district last week. ''Many others in Gandhinagar have been calling me up. I will consult with them and make public my decision tomorrow,'' he added, the report pointed out.

Speculation about Mehta's resignation from the post had started making the rounds after his meeting with the chief minister on Friday evening, soon after the Vidhan Sabha unanimously passed a resolution against the visit of the World Bank-appointed World Commission on Dams. Although both the chief minister and Mehta, who had replaced Patel for a year in 1995-96 in the wake of the Vaghela rebellion, denied that the latter had resigned, speculation was fuelled again with Mehta deciding to meet his supporters and address the press.

According to party sources, the immediate reason behind Mehta's ''threat to resign'' was the murder of his supporter, Bhavji Jadeja, a member of the Kutch district panchayat, by the charcoal mafia in the presence of forest guards on Thursday last.

On Saturday, Mehta was reported to have regretted the ''deteriorating law and order'' situation. Party leaders, however, denied any dissidence rearing its head again in the state BJP legislature party or among party MPs.

State BJP MLA and party spokesman Bharat Pandya said Mehta had ''neither resigned nor intended to do so''. He also said those involved in the murder of ''our dedicated party worker, Jadeja'' were, in no way, connected with the BJP. All reports about dissidence in the party were baseless, he added.

UNI

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