The Hindu : President's rule, best option in U.P.: BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2003

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National

President's rule, best option in U.P.: BJP

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI AUG. 25. With the third political divorce between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party complete today, the BJP leadership here is veering around to the view that the best option before it is to impose President's rule in Uttar Pradesh.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning the party's parliamentary board will meet here to review the entire political situation in the State as the Government at the Centre awaits a report from the U.P. Governor, Vishnu Kant Shastri.

The dilemma faced by the party is that while it would like to avoid U.P. going to the polls along with the five Assembly elections due later this year, it would also like to prevent a situation in which a credible claim to form an alternative government is made by the Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Now that the U.P. Chief Minister, Mayawati, has openly stated that she has recommended the dissolution of the Assembly to the Governor, there will be many MLAs in several parties who will be willing to change their political loyalties to avoid an early election. The BJP leadership here is acutely aware that even last year there was a group of nearly 20 disgruntled party MLAs in the State and very recently it had to take strong disciplinary action against Ramashish Rai who had become the focal point of dissent.

Party leaders here are of the view that at the moment there seems to be no option for the BJP except to try and impose President's rule and allow a cooling off period of six months. But for this Ms. Mayawati's resignation must be secured. So far, the indications from Lucknow are that she is adamant and will not resign. She has recommended dissolution of the Assembly to the Governor and early elections. In such a situation she would remain the caretaker Chief Minister till elections are held unless she is forced to quit after losing a confidence vote in the Assembly.

At a meeting at the Prime Minister's residence this evening several senior leaders discussed the legal issues involved. Besides the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the Law Minister, Arun Jaitely, were present. The party president, Venkaiah Naidu, was in Chennai, but was in touch with the top party leaders. He will chair tomorrow's Parliamentary Board meeting. Besides the nine parliamentary board members, some senior BJP leaders from Lucknow are also expected to attend.

Party leaders admit there were two factors that had prompted the BJP to enter into an alliance with the BSP after U.P. Assembly elections last year. One, it wanted to prevent Mr. Yadav from forming a government, and two, looking ahead to the next Lok Sabha elections it saw the relationship with the BSP as a way to secure about 45 to 50 of the 81 seats in U.P. Now all those calculations have gone awry.

The Prime Minister's Office here confirmed that Mr. Vajpayee had received a long letter from Ms. Mayawati listing her complaints against the BJP. But clearly, the first serious rift took place when the BJP forced her to withdraw her demand for the resignation or dismissal of the Union Minister, Jagmohan, who, she alleged, had tried to blame her for the Taj Heritage project controversy. BJP leaders here believe that today's crisis was born out of Ms. Mayawati's difficulties as the CBI's investigation into the controversy progresses under the keen eye of the Supreme Court.

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