No final decision yet: Keshubai

By Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD, OCT. 2. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, indicated here today that he still enjoyed the majority support of the BJP legislature party. He dropped enough hints to drive home the point that he still has a fair chance to continue in office.

Mr. Patel, who was talking to mediapersons at the airport on his return from Delhi, said the former party president, Mr Kushabhau Thakre, and the party national vice-president, Mr Madanlal Khurana, were coming tomorrow morning to ``assess'' the views of the party MLAs on the leadership choice and the opinion of the majority of the party members could not be ignored.

The Chief Minister apparently was unhappy over the way he had been ``treated'' by the party high command but did not show any defiant mood. He agreed that he had submitted his resignation to the party president, Mr. Jana Krishnamurthi, at the behest of the high command, but neither anyone in Delhi told him to submit his resignation to the Governor, nor he had any inclination to do so right now.

He said the question of his tendering resignation to the Governor, Mr. Sunder Singh Bhandari, would arise only after the legislature party decided on the leadership choice. The meeting of the legislature party would be held tomorrow or on Thursday in consultation with the two central leaders.

Asked whether the high command had decided that he would have to vacate the office, he replied in the negative. He claimed that no names had been discussed for his successor in the confabulations in Delhi with the high command and was particularly emphatic to say that Mr. Modi was ``nowhere in the picture.''

Sources, in the party, however, indicated that Mr. Modi's choice was ``as good as final.'' Most of the party leaders and Ministers who returned here after talks with the high command said they had been given to understand that the central leadership favoured Mr. Modi.

The pro-Patel lobby, however, has intensified its move to impress upon the central leadership that Mr. Patel should continue and that it was unfair to find in him a scapegoat for the party's debacle in the two recent parliamentary and Assembly byelections. A memorandum claiming support of at least 42 MLAs demanding continuation of Mr. Patel in the office was faxed to the party high command today.

A large number of his supporters, including some MLAs, turned up at the airport to show their solidarity with Mr. Patel. However, except for the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mr. Becharbhai Bhadani, none of his other Cabinet colleagues were present at the airport.

Meanwhile, in a significant development, Mr. Patel's second-in- command in the Cabinet, the Industries Minister, Mr. Suresh Mehta, said he would not like to continue as a Minister in case the choice fell on Mr. Modi, a relatively ``junior leader.'' A former Chief Minister, Mr. Mehta said he would prefer to remain as an ordinary MLA and serve the party.

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