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BJP ready for 'every eventuality', Union Cabinet to meet tomorrow

George Iype in New Delhi

President K R Narayanan tonight briefed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about his assessment of the political situation.

Emerging from a 40-minute meeting with the President, Vajpayee told the media that the Cabinet would meet at noon tomorrow to discuss the matter.

He declined to say if the Cabinet would recommend the dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha.

Vajpayee said that, while moving the confidence motion on April 15, he had asked the Opposition to tell the nation about the proposed alternative government and its common programme.

The Opposition members had told the Lok Sabha that they were in a position to form an alternative government in minutes. However, to date no alternative government was in sight, Vajpayee said.

Asked whether the President had asked him for the numbers to reinstate him, Vajpayee said all the facts were before Narayanan.

Asked if the President had asked him to hold the Cabinet meeting to recommend the dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha, Vajpayee said he would not 'say anything now'.

Vajpayee was accompanied to the Rastrapati Bhavan by his Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra.

The President had summoned Vajpayee after Congress president Sonia Gandhi formally gave up the party's claim to form an alternative government. She told the President that the party did not have the requisite numbers in the Lok Sabha.

Rashtrapati Bhavan sources said, ''The President sought Vajpayee's views on the political situation following Sonia's refusal to back a Third Front government. However, Vajpayee declined to comment, saying that he would have to consult his Cabinet in this regard.''

It is still not clear whether the President has agreed to give the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government a second chance to prove its majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha.

The BJP said it was ready for 'every eventuality', without specifying whether the Cabinet meeting would recommend the dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha.

After a meeting of the BJP and its allies at the prime minister's house tonight, party spokesman K L Sharma told the media that Vajpayee had informed the allies about his viewpoint on the latest political situation. The government decision in this regard would be known only after tomorrow's Cabinet meeting.

Asked if the Cabinet would recommend the dissolution of the House, Sharma said, ''I can't say that.''

Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan indirectly conceded that the Cabinet might recommend the dissolution of the House when he said that his party was not afraid of elections as ''the popularity of Vajpayee is reaching the skies. It is for you people (media) to infer whether the meeting would advise the dissolution of the House,'' he said.

BJP sources said several party leaders now favour a mid-term election. ''They feel that the party can reap a rich harvest while the Opposition's disastrous games are fresh in the people's minds,'' said a senior BJP leader. ''Also, they seem to be against the reinstatement of the Vajpayee government as they are not sure of the numbers. In case the BJP-led government loses another trust vote, the party might lose its credibility and would not be in a position to convince the electorate.''

Official sources said the Cabinet is likely to recommend the dissolution of the Lok Sabha clearing the decks for a mid-term poll.

The President is understood to have told Vajpayee that he had come to the conclusion that no viable alternative government could be formed in the current Lok Sabha.

The fact that Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill has been summoned from the US adds strength to the rumours about a looming mid-term poll.

Addressing the media after her meeting with the President this evening, Sonia said her party would not support a Third Front government.

''We are trying to get the support of those parties which had promised to back us. Several parties have already expressed their support for us. But some parties are allowing their personal ambitions to affect the country's interests,'' she said, adding that her party was prepared for any eventuality.

Earlier, Senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar said that the party has the support of 239 members of Parliament. He said Sonia would submit a letter to this effect to the President. ''It is up to the President to take a decision,'' he said.

Pawar was speaking to the media after the Congress Working Committee meeting. The CWC had reviewed the party's strategy on forming an alternative government following the Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo's rejection of West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's candidature to head the new government.

Though the CPI-M had taken a stand against Basu's candidature, an emissary of the party met a top Congress leader this afternoon to explore the possibility of supporting a Third Front government. The move was, however, rejected by the CWC on the ground that the Congress had lost heavily by supporting two United Front governments in the past.

CPI-M general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Basu also met the President this evening.

Speaking to the media after the meeting with the President, Surjeet blamed the Congress and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav for coming to the aid of the Bharatiya Janata Party to remain in power.

Surjeet said, ''We have been repeatedly saying that we will extend support from outside if the Congress forms an alternative government.

''We are not for power, we are concerned about communalism. The CPI-M would continue to fight communal forces led by the BJP,'' he said.

The CPI-M Politburo earlier said the proposal - of asking Basu to head a Third Front government -- was unrealistic and urged the Congress to soften its stand and go in for a coalition to prevent the BJP from staging a comeback.

Surjeet, speaking to newspersons even as the Politburo meeting continued this afternoon, said there was no other way for the formation of a stable government at the Centre. He said any other formation would only aggravate the situation. He said he could not see the possibility of a government under Basu as the numbers did not add up.

''I do not know how a government can be formed without the Congress,'' he said, adding that the Congress has not requested the CPI-M to form a government.

Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy blamed the 'Congress managers' for the Opposition's failure to cobble an alternative government.

Speaking to the media before meeting All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha at her hotel in New Delhi this evening, Dr Swamy said the Congress made the mistake of holding 'bilateral meetings' instead of holding a 'round table conference' of the parties concerned.

The bilateral parleys resulted in misunderstanding with one party not knowing what the other one had in mind.

''From the very beginning we were given the impression that the Congress was interested in a coalition government,'' he added.

He described the failure of the Opposition parties to provide an alternative to the Vajpayee government as a 'setback for secularism'.

The Samajwadi Party today lashed out at the Congress for rejecting the proposal for a Third Front government.

''If communal forces are encouraged by this development, the blame will go to the Congress,'' party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told the media.

He said the SP made a last-ditch attempt to prevail upon the Congress to lend outside support to a Third Front government.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal today welcomed the CPI-M Politburo's decision to reject Basu's candidature for heading an alternative government at the Centre.

Also, in an apparent criticism of Mulayam's role, RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav said those opposing a Congress government were diluting the fight against the BJP.

The BJP and its allies earlier in the day urged the President not to give the Congress any more time to form a government.

This morning, Mulayam Singh Yadav asserted at a press conference that his party would unconditionally support Basu's candidature for the prime ministership.

Jayalalitha had also indicated this morning that the Congress's chances of forming a government had receded and a Third Front government with Basu at the helm was likely.

This was Sonia's third meeting with the President after the Vajpayee government lost the vote of confidence on April 17.

She first met Narayanan on April 21 and conveyed that she had the support of 272 MPs and would give the letters of support in two days. At her second meeting with the President on Friday, the Congress president said she had 233 MPs and was making efforts to gather more support.

Basu, who had emerged as the most acceptable candidate if a Third Front government was formed until his party vetoed his candidature for the second time in three years, met the President for the first time after the BJP-led government fell.

At his press conference, Yadav made it clear that he had never described the Congress as a communal force, but was still of the opinion that during that party's 40 years in office, it has encouraged communal forces.

The SP president said the Congress should mellow its intransigent stand that ''Hum nahi to koi nahi, to phir chunav (if we are not there, that no one but polls)." Sonia emissaries Ajit Jogi and T Subbirami Reddy met Yadav last night, but did not apparently succeed in making him more amenable to a minority Congress government.

BJP leaders and their allies met at the prime minister's home this morning and expressed the confidence that the President would take a final decision this evening.

BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu said efforts to prop up a CPI-M-led government would be "playing a fraud on the people," since Basu did not have a popular mandate to lead the country.

The Left Front, they felt, did not even have the quorum strength in the Lok Sabha.

Naidu said today's meeting, which was also attended by the National Conference, held that the Communists were also against the economic policies of the BJP and Congress governments. While the Lok Sabha was in favour of the economic reforms and liberalisation, the Left was totally against it.

''The Congress has failed and the Third Front is dead and a new front is yet to come into existence,'' Naidu said.

Meanwhile, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad Yadav, an ally of Mulayam Singh, welcomed the CPI-M's decision and asserted that, "there is no alternative to Sonia Gandhi and a Congress-led government." Laloo Yadav's statement indicates the growing isolation of the Samajwadi Party leader in the non-BJP polity.

The Janata Dal threw a spanner in the Congress efforts to form an alternative government when its leader Ramvilas Paswan said the party's support to a secular government did not mean that it accepted the candidature of Sonia.

Paswan was reacting to party president Sharad Yadav's statement after meeting the President yesterday that the Dal would support a secular government.

Speaking to the media today, Paswan said there were sharp differences in the party over supporting a Congress government since the Karnataka, Orissa and Bihar units were opposed to it. Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel had sent a communication to the party's political affairs committee against supporting a Congress-led government.

Dal sources said at least two party MPs might back the BJP's efforts to stage a comeback.

Additional reportage: UNI

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