National

BJP-BSP contacts revived in U.P.

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI APRIL 3. A hectic round of meetings between the Uttar Pradesh leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the central party leadership here over the last two days has renewed speculation that some formulas for power-sharing between the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party in the State have been revived seriously.

Three senior central BJP leaders — Kushabhau Thakre, Pyarelal Khandelwal and Sanjay Joshi — were closeted with the State unit president, Kalraj Mishra, and others for over 24 hours in Ghaziabad. There are also reports of a significant "contact'' having been made between the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the BSP chief, Kanshi Ram. And over the last two days, the BJP president, Jana Krishnamurthi, has had separate meetings with the Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, and the Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi.

A sense of urgency is being felt as the imposition of President's Rule in Uttar Pradesh would have to be ratified by Parliament before the end of the Budget session in early May. If the Rajya Sabha fails to endorse it, the State Governor may be left with no option but to invite the Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, as leader of the single-largest party to explore government formation — a situation both the BJP and the BSP want to desperately avoid for entirely different reasons.

The BJP does not want to give an opportunity to Mr. Yadav to rectify the technical snag which prevented a chargesheet from being filed against Mr. Advani, Dr. Joshi and another Cabinet Minister, Uma Bharti, in the Babri Masjid demolition case. And as for the BSP, it apparently fears that if Mr. Yadav is invited by the Governor, it could lead to desertions.

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