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Mayawati govt. by this week?

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 22. The political arrangement between the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party is close to being finalised and before this week is out, a Mayawati government is expected to be installed in Lucknow.

The two parties are now engaged in working out a common minimum programme for governance to ensure a smooth functioning of the government. Although there have also been reports of hard bargaining for specific positions to be shared by the two major partners in the proposed coalition government in Uttar Pradesh, the BSP chief, Kanshi Ram, today denied that there was any question of his party conceding a post of Deputy Chief Minister to the BJP, a statement that was strongly criticised by Lalji Tandon, a senior State BJP leader and an aspirant to that post. Mr. Ram's view was that there should not be room for two power centres in the State.

BJP sources said today that the party's parliamentary board meeting would be called after the arrangement was sewn up neatly. The board would put the official stamp of approval on the agreement for sharing power. The BJP expects this to happen in the next two or three days, certainly by the end of this week, thus indicating that the differences between the two major partners have almost been tied up.

On Sunday, the major parties which contested the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls as allies of the BJP — the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti — indicated that they had no objection to a BSP-BJP tie-up and would participate in the Government. The MLAs of the allies are needed to add up to the half-way majority mark in the Assembly.

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