BJP decries opportunism among NDA allies

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JULY 27. For the first time since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government came to power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has expressed disapproval of the manner in which the NDA has functioned - with its constituents leaving it for their own purposes, and then seeking to re-enter as unceremoniously.

This is being seen as an indirect attack on the style of functioning of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, who apparently did not consult either his party or the other parties involved on taking back the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) into the NDA.

A senior BJP leader in the Government confirmed that the party's Tamil Nadu unit was unhappy with the reinduction of the PMK, and that Mr. Vajpayee had telephoned the DMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, on Thursday, a day after the PMK's entry into the NDA was announced.

The BJP's stance has so far been that it was for the NDA to decide, but now it has signalled that as a ``major part'' of the grouping, it had the right to be consulted.

``Certain norms'' need to be put in place to regulate the behaviour of NDA constituents, and this is exactly what the BJP president, Mr. Jana Krishnamurthi, suggested today in his opening address at the party's three-day national executive committee meeting here.

In his 11-page address which touched upon the Agra summit, the Tamil Nadu drama, the Manipur crisis and the troubled economy, Mr. Krishnamurthi left none in doubt that he was not too happy with the manner in which some NDA constituents had ``left us before the State Assembly elections'', thus raising doubts about the NDA's stability, and then after ``achieving the purpose for which they left'' they were trying to re-enter.

He suggested that it would be in the ``best interests of the NDA'' if ``certain norms are formulated for entry or re-entry of any party into the NDA''.

Mr. Krishnamurthi's remarks perhaps reflect the party's disapproval of the reported demand for two Cabinet berths by the PMK as also the suggestions that the Trinamool Congress was also trying to drive a bargain with the Prime Minister. What was more, it was the BJP which had to put up with these unreliable and unstable alliances in the States.

On the Agra summit, the BJP chief made the point that the party stood solidly behind the Prime Minister's ``peace offensive'' on Kashmir, which included his invitation to the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

No one need feel sorry that the summit did not produce a declaration, and India neither feared talking to Pakistan, nor did it talk to that country with fear. India was capable of meeting any challenge to it from any quarter, he asserted, in an indirect reference to the cross- border terrorism inspired by Pakistan.

Mr. Krishnamurthi did not forget to criticise the ``deliberate flouting'' of diplomatic courtesies by the guest from Pakistan and his ``parrot-like'' repetition that ``Kashmir is the core issue''.

And finally, the BJP reminded all that democratic India was bound by the 1996 Parliament resolution on Kashmir, asserting that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir was an indivisible and inalienable part of India.

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